Iran’s Three Day Missile Saber Rattling Warning To US, Israel – OpEd

As Americans memorialized and celebrated their nation’s Independence Day, the Iranian military completed three days of what amounted to a large-scale display of “saber-rattling” by launching a number of missiles, according to an Israeli source who’s monitoring events in Iran and Syria.

The Iranian Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) concluded its missile drill on Wednesday with Iranian military officials threatening any nation that dares to attack their nuclear facilities, according to the Israeli source.

On the last day of the missile exercise, the IRGC fired the indigenous “Persian Gulf” rockets at sea targets, the Iranian state-run new service reported.

IRGC’s jet fighters also bombarded designated targets and introduced their own version of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (drones) as well as pilotless helicopters, said the report.

On Tuesday the Iranian military test-fired several different classes of missiles and tested its UAV (drones) bombers during a drill.

IRGC officials claimed that their missiles could even reach 1,200 miles (2,000 km), but in the maneuver, only the ones with ranges of 300, 500, 800 and 1,300 km were tested, said the Iranian Republican News Agency.

Iranian officials noted that all of the U.S. bases in the Middle East are within the range of Iran’s missiles and Iranian missiles could hit Israeli cities and military targets.

Meanwhile, on Wednesday, Iran’s Defense Minister Brigadier General Ahmad Vahidi said Iran will give firm response to any military attack against the country, Iran’s Press TV reported.

“Those who make useless remarks about threatening Iran and have ill intentions toward this country should be ready for a crushing response (from Iran),” Vahidi told reporters.

He said that the maneuver not only manifests the prowess and capabilities of Iran’s armed forces, but also shows that the forces are fully aware of the vulnerabilities and weak points of those who resort to useless threats against Iran.

“The IRGC and the Iranian Army’s missiles can target and destroy any threatening entity in the region. Therefore, if [enemy nations] do anything against the security of the Persian Gulf, the Strait of Hormuz and Sea of Oman, they will definitely [suffer] losses,” he was quoted as saying.

Referring to the IRGC’s missile exercise, he said the drill is sending a message to Western powers in the Persian Gulf and Sea of Oman to avoid testing Iran’s defenses or they will suffer a crushing blow.