A senior Iranian security official boasted over the weekend that it would only take an Iranian missile seven minutes to reach Tel Aviv.
Mojtaba Zonour, a senior member of the Iranian parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Commission and former Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps official, made the comment during remarks on Iran’s capability to “raze to the ground” the American Fifth Fleet base in Bahrain in case Washington decided to act aggressively toward Tehran.
The comments by Zonour came as Washington and Tehran have been conducting an escalating battle of rhetoric since Iran test-launched a ballistic missile last week.
The new US administration sees the test as a violation of Iran’s nuclear agreement and UN resolutions against its ballistic missile program and has put the Islamic Republic “on notice” following the test.
Iran insists that its missile program is defensive and that the test did not violate Iran’s commitments under international agreements and UN resolutions.
“The US army’s fifth fleet has occupied a part of Bahrain, and the enemy’s farthest military base is in the Indian Ocean, but these points are all within the range of Iran’s missile systems and they will be razed to the ground if the enemy makes a mistake,” Zonour said, according to the Iranian FARS news agency.
Stressing that Tehran has prepared its forces for asymmetric war and attained great achievements in the missile field, Zonour said that if the “enemy” fired a single missile against Iran, the country would immediately retaliate by firing a missile at Tel Aviv.
On Saturday, a commander of the IRGC Aerospace Force, Brig.- Gen. Amir Ali Hajizadeh warned Washington against hostile action and issued his own threat of retaliation.
“If the enemy makes a mistake our roaring missiles will hit their targets,” Hajizadeh told reporters on the sidelines of a large-scale military drill in Northern Iran.
“Knowing the capabilities of our armed forces, I am to assure you that foreign threats cannot do us any harm,” Hajizadeh added.