TEHRAN(RAHNUMA): Iran’s Revolutionary Guards on Wednesday said a return to war with the United States was unlikely, while warning that the Islamic republic stood ready against any attack.
The statement came a day after Iran accused the US of breaching the ceasefire in place since April, and warned it was ready to retaliate after the most serious strikes since the truce took effect.
The Middle East war erupted in late February with US-Israeli strikes on Iran, spreading swiftly across multiple fronts and engulfing the region while throwing global energy markets into chaos.
“The possibility of war is low because of the enemy’s weakness, the armed forces are lying in wait with full magazines,” said Mohammad Akbarzadeh, deputy political chief of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy, was quoted by Tasnim news agency as saying.
“Do not doubt that we will turn the area from Chabahar to Mahshahr into a graveyard for aggressors,” he said, naming places at each end of Iran’s lengthy southern coast.
Iran and the US have for weeks been engaged in a war of words as they negotiate a deal with mediation efforts led by Pakistan.
With no clear winner in the war, neither side appears ready to compromise on the key sticking points in negotiations, which include the Strait of Hormuz and Iran’s nuclear program.
Iran blockaded the Strait of Hormuz, a waterway that is vital to global energy flows, in retaliation for the war, while the US responded with a counterblockade of Iranian ports.
Stock markets were mixed on Wednesday, with guarded optimism that the US and Iran could reach a deal.
Within reach
Iranian state media had reported blasts in the southern port city of Bandar Abbas, near the Strait of Hormuz, and the Revolutionary Guards said on Tuesday its forces downed a US drone entering its airspace and fired at an F-35 fighter jet.
“The US terrorist army, continuing its illegal and unjustified actions since the ceasefire … has, in the past 48 hours, committed a gross violation of the ceasefire in the Hormozgan region,” the Iranian foreign ministry said.
It added that Tehran “will not leave any evil unanswered and will not hesitate to defend the Iranian nation,” without elaborating.
Hours earlier, CENTCOM spokesman Captain Tim Hawkins had announced the new American strikes on Iran.
“US forces conducted self-defense strikes in southern Iran today to protect our troops from threats posed by Iranian forces,” Hawkins said.
He gave few details of the attacks and said only that the targets included missile launch sites and boats trying to “emplace mines.”
In a statement marking the start of the Eid Al-Adha holiday, Tehran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei declared Washington was losing its influence in the Middle East and warned countries in the region to stop hosting bases from which the US could launch attacks.
The United States, he said in a written statement, “in addition to no longer having any safe haven in the region for aggression and the establishment of military bases, is moving further and further away from its former position with each passing day.”
Despite the strikes, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Tuesday that a peace deal remained within reach, while insisting that the Strait of Hormuz would be reopened “one way or the other.”
