Tag: Ali Khamenei

Khamenei adviser says Tehran ‘capable of building nuclear bomb’

JERUSALEM POST STAFF – July 17, 2022

Tehran is technically capable of making a nuclear bomb but has yet to decide whether to build it, a senior adviser to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei told Al Jazeera’s Arabic service on Sunday.

Tehran will also directly respond against Israel should its security be targeted, the report says citing the advisor.

“In a few days we were able to enrich uranium up to 60% and we can easily produce 90% enriched uranium … Iran has the technical means to produce a nuclear bomb but there has been no decision by Iran to build one,” Kamal Kharrazi said.

Background
In 2018, former US President Donald Trump ditched Tehran’s 2015 nuclear deal with world powers, under which Iran curbed its uranium enrichment work, a potential pathway to nuclear weapons, in exchange for relief from economic sanctions.

About a year into Trump’s “maximum pressure” policy on Iran, Tehran started violating the pact’s nuclear restrictions.

Iran has long denied seeking nuclear weapons, saying it is refining uranium only for civilian energy uses, and has said its breaches of the international deal are reversible if the United States lifts sanctions and rejoins the agreement.

Indirect talks between Iran and President Joe Biden’s administration, which aim to bring both Washington and Tehran back into compliance with the nuclear pact, have stalled since March.

Kharrazi said Tehran would never negotiate over its missile program and regional policy, as demanded by the West and its allies in the Middle East.

https://www.jpost.com

Iranian newspaper threatens Israel with a map of targets that Iran would strike if provoked

ETH – December 15, 2021

Iran’s state-affiliated newspaper Tehran Times sent a direct threat to Israel on Wednesday, publishing a map of the country highlighted with dozens of potential Iranian targets if the Islamic Republic chose to attack the Jewish State according to CBN News.

The article, titled “Just One Wrong Move,” said Iran is capable of striking Israel “anywhere.” “An intensification of the Israeli military threats against Iran seems to suggest that the Zionist regime has forgotten that Iran is more than capable of hitting them from anywhere,” the paper says.

According to Tehran Times, Yedioth Ahronot also revealed that one of the main demands of Israel from the United States, which war minister Benny Gantz and Mossad chief David Barnea stressed during their visit to Washington last week, is a complete cessation of Iran’s ballistic missile development and production program.

The paper also said that the Israeli military experts are worried about the short time span it takes Iran to hit Israel. According to the Israeli newspaper, it takes Iran an hour to launch missiles into Israel.

Major General Mohammad Bagheri, the Chief of General Staff of Iran’s Armed Forces, said on Tuesday that Iran never underestimates the enemy’s threats. “Despite our confidence in the deterrence situation of the country, our forces have never underestimated the threat of the enemy and are prepared for the smallest of threats in the strategic field,” Bagheri remarked.

Tehran Times also quoted Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei responding to Israeli military threats against Iran in 2013, saying that “[the Israelis] must know that if they make a mistake, the Islamic Republic will destroy Tel Aviv and Haifa”.

https://endtimeheadlines.org

Iran piles on aggression, emboldened by US-Saudi-Israel restraint

Debkafiles – March 9, 2021

US goodwill gestures and warning signals have clearly lost their punch for Iran – even when backed by the mighty US B-52 bombers flying over their heads. After dozens of attacks on Saudi Arabia in recent weeks, Iran-backed Yemeni Houthi rebels outdid themselves on Sunday, March 8 by sending 14 armed drones and 8 ballistic missiles flying toward the Saudi petrol tank farm at Ras Tanura, one of the largest oil shipping ports in the world, and the residential area of Dharan that houses foreign oil workers, including Americans.  A gag order from Riyadh concealed the scale of injuries and damage. (See attached picture.)

On the same day, two heavy nuclear-capable US B-52 Stratofortress bombers made a round trip to the Gulf and back to home base, escorted through the skies of the region by British, Israel, Saudi and Qatari warplanes. This was the heavy bomber’s seventh mission over the Gulf and the second since Joe Biden took office as president.

In sharp contrast to actions set in motion from Tehran, America’s answer to the Yemeni attack on Saudi Arabia scarcely resonated. State Department spokesman Ned Price called it “unacceptable and dangerous, and put civilians at risk, including Americans.” He added, “They need to stop attacking and start negotiating.”

But Iran’s Yemeni proxy was clearly on the march even after the Biden administration made the gesture of lifting the terror designation and halting arms sales to Saudi Arabia.

The template for America’s non-response to devastating Iranian-instigated attacks on Saudi Arabia was set in September, 2019, when the Saudis’ main oilfields at Abqaig and Khurais were hit squarely and precisely by the same mix of drones and ballistic missiles. The attack, which cut Saudi oil production by half, was launched jointly by Yemeni Houthis in the south and pro-Iranian Iraqi Shiite militias from the north.

Not content with instigating a major assault on Saudi Arabia, Iranian officials also on Sunday had strong words for Israel too. Defense Minister Amir Hatami threatened to raze Tel Aviv and Haifa to the ground if Israel conducted a pre-emptive attack on Iran. Since this threat has become a constant, Hatami reinforced it by saying that, this time, he had orders from supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to translate those words into an active operation.

https://www.debka.com