Iran to counter threats to its security beyond its borders: IRGC

“Iran will never avoid giving response [to threats] beyond its borders if its security is put in danger,” Major General Mohammad Ali Jafari told Yemen’s al-Masirah TV on Friday.

General Jafari also referred to US President Donald Trump’s claim that his administration has decreased the Islamic Republic’s power, and said, “If in the past we could defend the Southwest Asia … in 12 minutes, we can do it now in a shorter time.”

The Iranian commander’s remarks came after Trump claimed on Tuesday Iran planned to take control of the Middle East in just “12 minutes.”

“Look at Iran, before I got there (to the White House), Iran was going to take (control) the Middle East in about 12 minutes, right?” Trump told his supporters in Council Bluffs, Iowa.

General Jafari further referred to US sanctions against Iran and said the Iranian nation has grown accustomed to such unilateral sanctions.

“Despite the sanctions, we have managed to achieve self-sufficiency and strengthen our national solidarity.”

The top commander made the comments a couple of weeks after the IRGC attacked the gathering of the ringleaders of a recent terror attack in the southwestern Iranian city of Ahvaz with several surface-to-surface ballistic missiles in an area east of the Euphrates in Syria.

The strike took place on October 1 by the IRGC’s Aerospace Division, killing and injuring dozens of Takfiri terrorists and ringleaders of the September 22 attack, in which 25 people were killed and 69 others wounded.

Iran’s top general has stressed that the retaliatory attacks were just the first stage of Tehran’s revenge against those who sponsored and orchestrated the Ahvaz attack, for which Tehran holds “regional terror sponsors” and their “US masters” responsible.