Iran’s military has issued an explicit warning that recreational and tourist sites around the world could become targets, escalating fears that the conflict with the United States and Israel may spill far beyond the Middle East.

Gen. Abolfazl Shekarchi, a senior military spokesman, declared that “parks, recreational areas and tourist destinations” would no longer be safe for what Tehran calls its enemies. The threat came as Iran continued to absorb waves of U.S.-Israeli airstrikes that have killed senior Iranian officials and severely damaged weapons and energy infrastructure.

The statement reinforced long-standing concerns among Western and regional security analysts that Iran, under mounting military and economic pressure, could revert to asymmetric tactics, including attacks on soft civilian targets abroad. Such a strategy would echo operations attributed in past decades to Iranian intelligence and allied militant groups in Europe, Latin America and Asia.

Even as it endures bombardment, Iran insists it retains the capacity to produce and launch missiles. Iranian forces have recently fired on Israel and on energy facilities in neighboring Gulf Arab states, signaling that Tehran still sees regional energy infrastructure as a lever of pressure.

In the United Arab Emirates, authorities have moved against institutions linked to Tehran. The Iranian Hospital in Dubai, long a symbol of cross-Gulf ties, has been shuttered, its website offline and phone lines disconnected. The facility, founded under Iran’s former monarchy, had provided low-cost care but was also suspected by Emirati officials of serving as a cover for Iranian intelligence activity.

Emirati authorities confirmed the closure of several Iranian-linked entities, saying that “certain institutions directly linked to the Iranian regime and Revolutionary Guard” were being shut under targeted measures after allegedly being misused in violation of UAE law. The Iranian Club in Bur Dubai also announced it would close “due to the current circumstances.”

The spiraling confrontation is reverberating across the region. Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan accused Israel of using the war with Iran as a pretext to restrict access to Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa Mosque, warning that such moves deepen instability.

In Tehran, thousands attended the funeral of slain intelligence minister Esmail Khatib and his family, killed in an Israeli strike. Iran’s new Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, vowed that the country’s enemies would see their own “security” stripped away, underscoring a shift toward openly threatening civilian spaces far beyond Iran’s borders.