Iran has issued a stark warning that it could target Israeli embassies around the world.
Brigadier General Abolfazl Shekarchi, the senior spokesperson for Iran’s Armed Forces, made the comments in the Islamic Republic’s semi-official news agency Tasnim.
If Israel targets the Iranian embassy in Beirut – which, Shekarchi claimed, it has threatened to do - Iran will “reciprocate”, he said.
Israel has launched strikes on Beirut’s southern suburbs in recent days in an attempt to destroy Hezbollah infrastructure after the terror group launched rocket attacks against the Jewish state in response to the death of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
The IDF has also advanced ground troops deeper into southern Lebanon to adopt an “advanced defensive posture” and prevent “direct fire” on Israel.
Tasnim reported that, if the Beirut embassy were to be hit, attacks could be launched against any Israeli embassy worldwide.
Shekarchi said that any attack on Iran’s Beirut embassy would compel Iran to consider all Israeli embassies as legitimate targets.
“If the Zionist regime commits such an act of aggression, we will undoubtedly take reciprocal action,” he stated.
Shekarchi reaffirmed Iran’s determination to bring both the Israeli regime and its primary ally, the US, “to their knees” and that Iran will not waver from achieving this.
Shekarchi also said that the regime had restrained itself in the conflict, despite having significant military, out of what Tasnim referred to as international respect.
“Apart from the United States and the Israeli regime, Iran maintains no hostility or conflict with any other nation,” Shekarchi said.
It comes after two of Iran’s most prominent religious leaders have issued a fatwa calling on Muslim worldwide to avenge Khamenei’s death.
Hossein Noori Hamedani and Naser Makarem Shirazi, grand ayatollahs of the Islamic Republic, released a fatwa – a ruling made by Islamic legal scholars – against American and Israeli interests across the globe.
The pair ruled that “avenging the blood of the martyred leader of the revolution is obligatory for all Muslims,” adding: “Without doubt, criminal America and the bloodthirsty Zionists have reached the end of their path, and this time the powerful armed forces will deliver a decisive and unforgettable response.
"The people of Iran and the Islamic world are the avengers of the blood of the martyred leader of the Revolution.
"Seeking revenge is the religious duty of all Muslims worldwide so that the evil of these criminals may be removed from the world.”
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