Army Commander: Iran’s Redline Lies 40km Beyond Borders

Addressing the rank and files of the Iranian Army Ground Force in Tehran on Tuesday, Gen. Pourdastan said the Islamic Republic Army is monitoring every move made in the region “and would show reaction once necessary”.

He further ensured the Iranian military forces’ full preparedness, saying that “the army would never be surprised”.

The General said the region is suffering from proxy wars, and reiterated that the army is fully ready to defeat any type of enemy in any kind of proxy war.

“We have drawn a 40km redline and we deal with any threat that approaches this redline,” the Ground Force commander said.

Pourdastan and many other Iranian military officials have repeatedly warned that they would show tough reaction to any enemy that might approach the country’s borders from a good distance and before the enemy troops cross the border into Iran.

ISIL was in some areas only 100 kilometers away from Iran’s border last year, but was pushed back hundreds of miles away to western Iraq with the help of Iranian advisors.

In January 2015, Pourdastan said ISIL evacuated areas closer than 40km to the Iranian border after receiving relevant warnings from Tehran.

“When the terrorist and Takfiri ISIL grouplet entered Iraq from the country’s Western borders and reached near the Iranian borders, the Ground Force was fully ready to suppress the terrorist grouplet,” Pourdastan said in an interview last year.

“At that time, in addition to full preparedness at the borders, we drew a redline 40km inside the Iraqi soil and underlined that if they passed this redline, they would be given a crushing response by the Islamic Republic of Iran’s Armed Forces,” he added.

The ISIL terrorist grouplet received the message and rapidly moved away from the specified areas, Pourdastan said.

He also reiterated the full preparedness of the Ground Force’s different units to safeguard and defend the Iranian borders at any moment.