Iran Targets Two U.S. Navy Officers Online as Their Warship Ends Record Deployment

Iran’s embassy in South Africa publicly threatened two U.S. Navy officers with a chilling “We will find you” message as their warship returned to San Diego on Friday, closing out a historic 357-day deployment that saw the vessel engage Iranian forces in combat.

The warning, posted on X on Nov. 13 alongside images identifying the USS Spruance’s commanding officer and executive officer, drew a sharp rebuke from a regional security expert, who said Tehran’s overt targeting of American service members should sound alarms across Washington.

The embassy named Cmdr. Leigh R. Tate, commanding officer of the Spruance, and Lt. Cmdr. Jeffrey E. York, the ship’s executive officer.

“We will find you,” the embassy wrote on X.

It was not the first time the mission had singled out the pair. In a March 28 post, the embassy accused them of ordering the Tomahawk missile strikes that it claimed killed 168 children at a school in Minab, Iran.

“Remember these two criminals,” the earlier post began, adding, “Don’t they have children of their own?”

Behnam Ben Taleblu, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, cautioned that such rhetoric from Tehran deserves to be taken seriously, given Iran’s record of plotting attacks against American officials.

“This should be setting off alarm bells in Washington, in the White House, the Pentagon, and even within CENTCOM,” Taleblu told Fox News Digital. “The Islamic Republic has literally identified personnel that they allege are involved in strikes against the regime, and they’re talking about retribution.”

“If indeed there is any plot to go after these individuals, it is critical they’re detected, they are disrupted, they are defeated,” he warned.

The Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Spruance fires a Tomahawk Land Attack Missile in support of Operation Epic Fury. (U.S. Navy/Handout via REUTERS)

Iran’s threat landed a day after President Donald Trump warned Tehran against assassinating senior American officials.

In a Nov. 12 interview with radio host Hugh Hewitt, Trump was asked what would happen if Iran killed a senior U.S. official.

“They will not exist very long, any longer,” Trump replied.

His remarks also followed reports that Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent had relocated from his residence near Washington to a military base amid Iranian threats against his life.

Bessent confirmed the move during a Friday interview on CNBC, saying he was acting on Secret Service guidance.

“Why am I going to be afraid when the brave military personnel in the Gulf, President Trump, constantly receive death threats?” Bessent asked.

He described Iran as behaving “like a dangerous cornered animal” and insisted the intimidation would not weaken the administration’s economic pressure campaign against Tehran.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent gestures while speaking at the U.S.-China Relations Gala Dinner on Nov. 10, 2026, in New York. (AP Photo/Frank Franklin II)

Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and senior White House official Stephen Miller have also reportedly relocated to military or other protected housing over security concerns.

In a separate post on X, the Iranian embassy mocked senior administration officials over those arrangements.

“Rubio, Bessent, Hegseth, and other U.S. officials live in constant fear, haunted by the crimes committed, and now confined to military bunkers for their own protection,” the embassy wrote, suggesting they should occasionally appear in public.

The threats emerged as federal authorities detailed new developments in alleged Iranian-backed plots against Americans.

On Nov. 10, the FBI added Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps operative Shahram Poursafi to its Most Wanted Terrorists list over an alleged assassination scheme targeting former senior U.S. officials, including former national security adviser John Bolton.

That same day, the Justice Department announced terrorism charges against three men accused of involvement in nearly 20 attacks and attempted attacks across Europe and the United States, including an alleged plot against a British air base that houses American forces.

The moves followed an Oct. 23 U.S. intelligence assessment warning that Iranian efforts to target American personnel abroad had risen sharply, with some schemes reaching advanced stages.

The Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer departed San Diego on Nov. 21, 2025, alongside the USS Abraham Lincoln Carrier Strike Group. Its deployment was extended as American forces conducted Operation Epic Fury against Iran. (Sandy HUFFAKER / AFP via Getty Images)

The embassy’s warning coincided with the Spruance’s return to Naval Base San Diego on Nov. 13, ending the longest deployment by a U.S. Navy destroyer since World War II.

The destroyer had left San Diego on Nov. 21, 2025, sailing with the USS Abraham Lincoln Carrier Strike Group. Its tour was extended as U.S. forces carried out Operation Epic Fury against Iran.

According to a Navy statement, the Spruance traveled more than 88,000 nautical miles during the deployment and fired dozens of Tomahawk land-attack cruise missiles at Iranian military targets between February and August 2026.

The ship also downed 12 unmanned aerial vehicles and four anti-ship cruise missiles while operating under constant threat from Iranian drones and missiles.

“Spruance, in particular, as the alternate air defense commander was, I would say, instrumental in defending the carrier, defending the force from those inbound threats,” Tate said Friday in the statement.

The destroyer also participated in the U.S. blockade of Iranian ports. In April, it intercepted the Iranian-flagged cargo vessel Touska after the ship failed to comply with repeated American warnings. (CENTCOM/Handout via REUTERS)

The destroyer took part in the U.S. blockade of Iranian ports as well. In April, it intercepted the Iranian-flagged cargo vessel Touska after the ship ignored repeated American warnings.

U.S. Central Command said at the time that the Spruance ordered the vessel’s engine room evacuated before firing rounds that disabled it.

Tate called leading the ship through the extended deployment an “honor of a lifetime.”

“Spruance sailors made a difference,” Tate said in Friday’s statement. “They represented their families, their ship and the United States Navy with distinction.”

Meanwhile, Iranian officials have also issued threats against U.S. military installations overseas.

On Nov. 11, Iranian Supreme National Security Council Secretary Mohsen Rezaei warned that Tehran could strike American bases in Europe if Washington resumed attacks on Iran.

Mohsen Rezaei, a former Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps general and member of the Expediency Discernment Council, as well as secretary of the Supreme Council for Economic Coordination and head of the government’s Economic Committee, attends a ceremony at Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s shrine in southern Tehran on June 4, 2026. (Morteza Nikoubazl/NurPhoto)

“If the Americans make a mistake and attack us, we will not limit ourselves to nearby bases,” Rezaei told Al Mayadeen.

Taleblu described the embassy’s latest statements as part of a widening pattern of threats against American personnel.

“This is an escalation of the course that we’ve been on,” he said, citing threatening rhetoric from Iranian diplomatic accounts and hard-line commentators during and after the war.

“So this is basically incitement and invective from the world’s foremost state sponsor of terrorism, one which unfortunately has a track record of carrying these things out, even with a delay.”

He noted threats against U.S. military personnel that followed the accidental American shootdown of an Iranian civilian airliner in 1988.

“Something like this is not unprecedented in the 47-year shadow war between the Islamic Republic and America,” Taleblu said, warning that the conflict has increasingly shifted from covert operations into open warfare and growing public threats on social media.

Fox News Digital has reached out to the Pentagon and the White House for comment.

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