The leader of the Revolutionary Guards, the Iranian ideological army, warned Saturday that any country attacking the Islamic Republic of Iran would see its territory become "the main battleground" of the conflict.
"We will never allow a war to encroach on the territory of Iran"
"Whoever wants his land to become the main battlefield, go ahead," Major General Hossein Salami told a news conference in Tehran. "We will never allow a war to encroach on the territory of Iran," he added. These words come after the announcement by the United States of the sending of military reinforcements in the Gulf, after attacks against oil facilities in Saudi Arabia, claimed by Yemeni rebels Houthis but attributed to Iran by Ryad and Washington.
Regain tensions between Washington and Tehran since May 2018
The attacks, which halved Saudi oil production, revived fears of a military clash between the United States and Iran. Tensions between the two countries have steadily increased since the unilateral withdrawal of the United States in May 2018 from the international nuclear agreement reached in Iran in 2015 followed by the return of heavy US sanctions against Iran. On Friday, Donald Trump announced new sanctions on the Iranian banking sector, especially against the Central Bank. "That means there will be no more money going to the Revolutionary Guards (...) to finance terrorism," said Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin.
"We hope they will not make a strategic mistake" as in the past, General Salami added to Tehran, before listing a series of historic US "adventures" against Iran.
General Salami spoke at the inauguration of an exhibition at the Museum of Sacred Defense and the Islamic Revolution, dedicated to what Iran presents as US drones and other captured on its territory.