‘IRGC ready to respond to any attack’

June 22, 2008 - 0:0

TEHRAN (Press TV) -- A senior Iranian commander says the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps is geared up to counter any act of aggression against the country.

Speaking to reporters on an IRGC command ship in the Persian Gulf fleet headquarters, Major General Mohammad-Ali Jafari said Saturday that Iran’s armed forces are prepared to detect and repel any potential attack against the country’s nuclear facilities.
After overseeing a military exercise aimed at detecting and destroying mock targets in the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz, Maj. Gen. Jafari asserted that Iran’s army is equipped with cutting-edge military warfare enabling it to instantly respond to any act of aggression.
The maneuver, which was a rehearsal of different passive defense methods, included torpedo and missile speedboat drills, sources told Press TV.
Maj. Gen. Jafari’s remarks came a day after a New York Times report quoted Pentagon officials as saying that over 100 Israeli F-16s and F-15s staged a maneuver off the southern Mediterranean island of Crete in the first week of June.
According to the report, the Israeli jets flew more than 900 miles, roughly the distance from Israeli airfields to an Iranian nuclear enrichment facility in Natanz.
Although Israeli officials have declined to comment on the report, military analysts believe the exercise was a ‘dress rehearsal’ for a possible air strike on Iranian nuclear facilities.
Israel accuses Iran of ‘producing bomb-grade uranium’ and has repeatedly threatened the country with war.
This is while Israel bars inspections of its nuclear facilities and is widely believed to have over 200 nuclear warheads in its arsenal. Israel calls its approach of neither denying nor admitting that it has nuclear weapons ‘strategic ambiguity’.
Iran, however, is a signatory to the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and allows the UN nuclear watchdog to conduct inspections of its nuclear facilities. -