Iran has the ability and will to target any and all territories sheltering the US or its allies in the region in the event of aggression against Tehran, Armed Forces spokesman Brig. General Abolfazl Shekarchi has warned.
“Any place and any territorial point sheltering the interests of the United States and its allies would be threatened (in case of any war) and the Islamic Republic has proved that it has the capability to do so,” the spokesman for the armed forces general staff said, speaking to Fars News Agency.
“Even if a country does not directly participate in any possible war but its territories host the enemy, we consider that country as a hostile territory and will treat it as an aggressor,” Shekarchi added.
Emphasising that Iran would never be the instigator of a war of aggression, the spokesman also stressed that “if an aggressor commits a strategic mistake” and starts a war, “that aggression will be confronted with the strongest and most crushing response over a geographic expanse beyond what the ill-wishers of the Islamic Republic could imagine.”
Shekarchi added that the ineffectiveness of US military equipment was recently proven when all the advanced US radar and air defence systems “failed their test in a shameful manner” when Yemen’s Houthi militia launched attacks on Saudi Aramco facilities in September. At that time, the spokesman said, the whole world “realized the weakness and humiliation [of Western countries’ equipment] in this field.”
This was the second time Brig. Gen. Shekarchi has warned the US about the dangers of a conflict with Iran. In June, amid regional fears about how the US might respond to the destruction of a $220 million drone by Iranian air defences in the Strait of Hormuz, the spokesman warned that firing even “one bullet” at Iran would cause the region to “be set on fire” in the war that followed.
The United States already has over half a dozen major bases scattered around Iran, and recently confirmed plans to send 3,000 additional US personnel, two fighter squadrons, and Patriot and THAAD batteries to Saudi Arabia in the wake of the Saudi Aramco attacks.
US bases include the permanent base in Bahrain housing the US Navy’s 5th Fleet, a US Army Central Command forward command post in Kuwait, the Al Dhafra Air Base in the United Arab Emirates, which contains an estimated 5,000+ US personnel, and the massive Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar, which houses some 10,000 troops.
Source: Sputnik
