Tehran: A commander of Iran's elite
Revolutionary Guards said on Sunday that air defence forces would
"annihilate" Israeli warplanes if they attacked the Islamic
republic, as the forces began five days of war games.
The manoeuvres are aimed at practising responses to
simulated attacks on the country's nuclear facilities.
"Their (Israeli) F-15 and F-16 fighters will be trapped
by our air defence forces and will be annihilated," Amir Ali
Hajizadeh, who heads the Guards' air force wing, told the Fars
news agency.
"Even if their planes escape and land at the bases from
which they took off, their bases will be struck by our
destructive surface-to-surface missiles."
An aide to Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei
also said yesterday that if Iran is attacked, it will
retaliate against the Israeli metropolis of Tel Aviv.
"If the enemy attacks Iran, our missiles will strike Tel
Aviv," the official IRNA news agency quoted Khamenei's
representative in the Guards, Mojhtaba Zolnoor, as saying.
"Our unit will be in charge of the manoeuvres but there
will be units from the Revolutionary Guards and the Basij
(militia)," he added.
Iran's still non-operational nuclear power plant is in
southern Bushehr province while its uranium enrichment plants
are in Isfahan and near Tehran.
Bureau Report
First Published: Sunday, November 22, 2009, 21:18