News Today: Top Iranian general vows to ‘annihilate’ Israel - Hot News

Mohammad Reza Naqdi on right

Times of Israel reports that a top Iranian general has said Iran will annihilate Israel, boasted that Iran could easily defeat Saudi Arabia, and threatened to overrun American military bases in the Middle East.

Brig. Gen. Mohammad Reza Naqdi, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Deputy Commander for Cultural and Social Affairs, said in a December 28 interview with the Iraqi television network Al-Nujaba that the “Islamic revolution in Iran will not back down” from the goal of “wiping out” the Jewish state. The interview was translated Wednesday by the Middle East Media Research Institute.

Naqdi, a former head of the regime’s Basij militia, insisted in the interview that “Israel must be destroyed and wiped out. There is no doubt that the Zionists must be annihilated and destroyed. This will definitely happen.”

He added: “Neither Russia nor any other country can intermediate between us and the Zionists. The Islamic revolution in Iran will not back down even an inch from its position regarding the wiping out of Israel.”

He vowed to take part in that effort. “We were, we are, and we will continue to be the soldiers of Imam Khamenei,” he said, “until our last breath and until the last drop of our blood. I myself will hoist the flag of the Islamic Revolution in Jerusalem, Allah willing.”

Iranian leaders routinely call for the destruction of Israel, and the Iranian regime arms and funds terrorist groups that seek Israel’s destruction such as Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad, but it is less common for regime figures to directly declare that Iran will wipe out the Jewish state.

He scoffed at the idea that the US would attack Iran. “America will not launch a war against Iran,” he told the interviewer. “If it does — a possibility that I rule out — we will destroy all its military bases in the region. We currently stand before the gates and barbed wire [surrounding those bases], and if they make a wrong move, we will cross those barbed wire fences.”

And he belittled Saudi military capabilities. Asked if “Saudi Arabia is capable of following through with its threats” to attack the Iranian regime, he called the idea “very laughable.”

“We have a Farsi proverb that goes, ‘You cannot compare an ant to an elephant.’ Saudi Arabia is incapable of controlling even its domestic front. It uses fighter planes to bomb small neighborhoods in Saudi Arabia. I believe that Saudi Arabia is much weaker than you might think. If we gave the order to a division in any of our 30 provinces, it would be able to defeat and destroy Saudi Arabia. It’s true that Saudi Arabia has many advanced weapons, but it cannot face an army like Iran’s.”

On Wednesday, Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said American sanctions are putting pressure on Iran and its people.

In an unusually forceful speech from the holy city of Qom, Khamenei also mocked American leaders, as top US diplomat Mike Pompeo made a tour of the region.

from PROPHECY HEADLINES.COM http://bit.ly/2VHSw6O
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