TEHRAN, July 18 (Xinhua)
A top Iranian military adviser warned on Friday that if the United States continues the war against Iran for another two to three days, the country will enter an “offensive and destructive” phase.
Mohsen Rezaei, military adviser to Iran’s Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei, said in an interview with state-run IRIB TV that the policy of “both war and negotiation” has ended, adding that if U.S. attacks continue, Iran’s armed forces will no longer limit themselves to retaliatory strikes, and U.S. bases and forces will no longer be safe within any political borders.
Rezaei said Iran has so far exercised restraint to prevent the war from expanding into a broader regional and international crisis, accusing the United States of miscalculating by turning the war into a regional one.
He warned that if the United States continues its anti-Iran actions, Iran will deploy additional military capabilities, including ground forces, and the war’s scope will expand.
Rezaei also called on the peoples of regional countries, including Kuwait, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, and Qatar, to help prevent further escalation.
He noted that even at the current stage, Iran’s responses to the U.S. attacks have been “very heavy,” warning that the intensity of Iranian military operations will increase in the coming days.
“The United States must wait for expanded waves of missile and drone attacks,” Rezaei said, cautioning Washington against any ground operation against Iran.
Meanwhile, Iran’s semi-official Tasnim news agency reported on Friday that Iranian forces targeted a “violating” vessel in the Strait of Hormuz earlier in the day.
Citing an informed military source, Tasnim said that the Thai-flagged vessel attempted to cross the strait without obtaining necessary permissions from the Navy of Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guard Corps and ignored warnings.
Over the past several days, the U.S. military has launched multiple waves of strikes against Iran’s southern provinces, claiming that the attacks are in response to the Iranian armed forces’ targeting of vessels in the Strait of Hormuz, and aimed at “degrading Iran’s ability to threaten commercial shipping.”
Iran has responded with waves of missile and drone attacks targeting U.S. military bases and facilities across the region.
