Iranian nation’s security is our ‘red line’: IRGC’s top commander

A senior commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) says the missile strike against the positions of terrorists behind a recent attack in southwest Iran was aimed to show that security of the Iranian nation is a “red line” for the IRGC.

“We took advantage of both missiles and drones in this operation to teach enemies a lesson that they should not support these terrorist groups,” Brigadier General Amir Ali Hajizadeh, the commander of the IRGC’s Aerospace Force, said on Monday.

He made the remarks on the same day that the IRGC released a statement revealing new details on its missile strike on terrorists’ positions.

The statement said that the attack targeted terrorist positions to the east of the river Euphrates, near Albu Kamal town on Syria’s eastern border with Iraq.

The operation, dubbed The Muharram Strike, saw the IRGC’s Aerospace Force fire a total of “six medium-range ballistic missiles” from western Iran at targets 570 kilometers (355 miles) away, it said.

The IRGC said the attack was a response to the “cowardly” act of terror during a military parade in the southwestern city of Ahvaz on September 22, which killed 25 people and injured 69 others.

“We ensure our dear compatriots that, as it has been said repeatedly, the armed forces view Iran’s national security as their red line” and the IRGC, as well as the country’s Army, police and intelligence arms, would respond to enemy violations with an “iron fist,” it added.

Elsewhere in his remarks, Hajizadeh said, “The terrorists used bullets [in their attack on Iranian people] and we responded to them using missiles.”

“We will continue this struggle until total annihilation of terrorists and as the Leader [of the Islamic Revolution] said, if they hit [us] with one [missile], they will be hit with 10 [Iranian missiles],” he concluded.

Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei said on September 22 that the terrorist attack in Ahvaz was the continuation of plots hatched by US stooges in the region to create insecurity in the country, adding that Iran’s intelligence services must swiftly find the accomplices of the “criminals” behind the attack and put them on trial.

These savage mercenaries who open fire on innocent civilians, including women and children, are linked with the same liars who claim to advocate human rights, Ayatollah Khamenei added.

The Leader also said on September 24 that Iran will severely punish those “cowardly” elements who were behind the terrorist attack in Ahvaz.

Describing the attack on defenseless people as an act of cowardice, the Leader noted, “According to [available] reports, this cowardly act has been perpetrated by the same people who are saved by Americans whenever they face a difficult situation in Iraq and Syria” and whose operations are being financed by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.