Iran military chiefs warn of renewed conflict with Israel
Iran’s top military commanders warned on Thursday that the armed forces are ready to resume fighting in the wake of the 12-day war with Israel amid a ceasefire brokered by the US.
Iran’s top military commanders warned on Thursday that the armed forces are ready to resume fighting in the wake of the 12-day war with Israel amid a ceasefire brokered by the US.
“Our forces are fully prepared to resume combat from exactly where it stopped,” said Major General Mohammad Pakpour, commander-in-chief of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), during a meeting in Tehran with Major General Amir Hatami, commander-in-chief of Iran’s army.
“The aggressors will not be spared,” he added. “The will and resolve of the Iranian people and our armed forces have triumphed. We stand together.”
Earlier in the day, a senior Iranian lawmaker also warned that Iran would respond to any future Israeli attack with a blow more severe than last month’s conflict.
“If the Zionist regime again makes the mistake of acting against the Islamic Republic, it will be hit even harder than it was in Operation True Promise 3,” Esmail Kowsari, a member of parliament’s national security and foreign policy committee, told reporters i Tehran.
Hatami said Iran would not wait for external threats to materialize. Last week, Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned that the war with Iran "is not over".
“The Zionist regime is a danger to regional and global peace,” Hatami said. “If given the opportunity, it would strike others in the region. We will not allow it.”
The commanders’ statements came amid Israel’s airstrikes on Damascus. Israel wants a demilitarised buffer zone in southern Syria.
US President Donald Trump expects Iran to return to nuclear negotiations, saying that diplomacy is in Tehran's best interest, according to the State Department Spokeswoman Tammy Bruce.
“I know that he expects them to begin to negotiate because that's in their best interest,” Bruce said in an interview with Fox News. “He has believed and continues to believe that diplomacy will work here."
Trump has warned that if Iran's nuclear program continues to pose a threat, he would "absolutely" consider more strikes, "without a question".
Iran maintains its nuclear program is peaceful.
The latest assessment, which showed that Fordow was set back as long as two years, was briefed to US lawmakers, Defense Department officials and allied countries in recent days.
NBC also reported that an initial plan presented to US President Donald Trump involved three more sites, but the operation would have taken weeks, leading him to scale back the scope due to the risk of casualties on both sides and the fact that it was at odds with his foreign policy to extract the US from conflicts abroad.
“We were willing to go all the way in our options, but the president did not want to,” one of the sources with knowledge of the plan said.
The US strikes targeted three enrichment sites in Iran, Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan.
Trump was quick to call the strikes “a spectacular military success” and said, “Iran’s key enrichment facilities have been completely and totally obliterated."
Israel has not ruled out further attacks on the two less damaged sites. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Fox News last week that “it’s not over”.
Iran is the only non-nuclear weapon state enriching uranium to 60% U-235, a level that causes "serious concern," according to International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi.
The IAEA has consistently maintained that there is no credible civilian use for uranium enriched to this level, which is a short technical step from weapons-grade 90% fissile material.
Iran has always said its nuclear program is purely for peaceful, civilian purposes.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said the strikes on the Fordow nuclear site caused severe damage.
A former top UN nuclear official told Eye for Iran podcast that a nuclear Iran is still possible despite US and Israeli strikes on key nuclear sites as the whereabouts of Tehran's near-weapons grade uranium remains unknown.
Around 400 kilograms—more than 900 pounds—of uranium enriched to 60% purity is unaccounted for and now with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) barred from the country, it is unsure if the location can ever be known.
Former Deputy Director General of the IAEA, Olli Heinonen, warned: “One should not relax because this material as such is enough for 10 nuclear weapons if it is enriched further to 90%. So in a big picture, yes, Mr Trump was correct, but it should have had this caveat that it's not yet over.”
