US should threaten to blow Iran 'to smithereens' for threats - Trump

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump said on Wednesday that the United States should threaten to bomb countries which seek the assassination of US leaders in the wake of an alleged Iranian plot on his life.

"If I were president, I'd inform the threatening country, in this case Iran, that if you do anything to harm this person, we're going to blow your largest cities and the country itself to smithereens, and there'd be no more threats," Trump told supporters at a rally in in North Carolina.

"But right now we don't have that leadership or necessary leaders," the former president added.

Trump earlier said that the Islamic Republic was seeking to kill him and that his security detail had been increased as his campaign said it was briefed on the threats by US security officials.

“Big threats on my life by Iran. The entire U.S. Military is watching and waiting. Moves were already made by Iran that didn’t work out, but they will try again," the former President said on X.

"I am surrounded by more men, guns, and weapons than I have ever seen before," he added. "An attack on a former President is a Death Wish for the attacker!"

A spokesperson from the US Office of the Director of National Intelligence acknowledged the briefing on Tuesday but declined to address any specifics.

Authorities in Iran did not immediately comment on the situation.

Trump's campaign said the Iranian threats were part of an effort to undermine the United States, Iran's main antagonist since its Islamic Revolution in 1979.

"President Trump was briefed earlier today by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence regarding real and specific threats from Iran to assassinate him in an effort to destabilize and sow chaos in the United States," it said in a statement.

The campaign said intelligence officials conveyed that Iranian threats have "heightened in the past few months", without elaborating.

Iran has issued repeated threats of retribution against those who were involved in the 2020 targeted killing of Qasem Soleimani, Iran's top military and intelligence operative in the Middle East.

Earlier this month, a Pakistani man with alleged ties to Iran pleaded not guilty to charges stemming from an alleged plot to assassinate an unnamed American politician in retaliation for Soleimani's killing.

The defendant named Trump as a potential target but had not conceived the scheme as a plan to assassinate the former president, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Federal authorities are separately investigating an apparent assassination attempt on Trump at his Florida golf course in mid-September and a July 13 shooting of the Republican presidential candidate at a rally in Pennsylvania. There has been no indication of Iranian involvement in either of the alleged attempts.

US government agencies said last week Iranian hackers sent emails containing stolen material from the Republican former president's campaign to people involved in Democratic President Joe Biden's then re-election campaign, as part of an alleged broader effort by Tehran to influence the US election.

Biden stepped aside as a candidate in late July and was replaced by Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris, who faces Trump in a tight race for the Nov. 5 US elections.

In August, the United States accused Iran of launching cyber operations against the campaigns of both US presidential candidates. Iran denied the allegations.