Iran warns US against imposing further sanctions

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Iran warned the United States against designating its Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist group and said the US regional military bases would be at risk if further sanctions were passed.

The warning came after the White House said on Friday that President Donald Trump would announce new US responses to Iran’s missile tests, support for “terrorism” and cyber operations as part of his new Iran strategy.

“As we’ve announced in the past, if America’s new law for sanctions is passed, this country will have to move their regional bases outside the 2,000-km range of Iran’s missiles,” Guards’ commander Mohammad Ali Jafari said, according to state media.

File Photo: Commander of Iran's Revolutionary Guards, General Mohammad Ali Jafari, attends a press conference in Tehran in 2012. /AFP Photo

Jafari also said that additional sanctions would end the chances for future dialogue with the United States, according to state media, and issued a stark warning to American troops.

“If the news is correct about the stupidity of the American government in considering the Revolutionary Guards a terrorist group, then the Revolutionary Guards will consider the American army to be like ISIL all around the world particularly in the Middle East,” Jafari said.

The Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) are Iran’s most powerful internal and external security force. The Quds Force, the IRGC’s foreign espionage and paramilitary wing, and individuals and entities associated with the IRGC are on the US list of foreign terrorist organizations, but the organization as a whole is not.

Iran's Revolutionary Guards said a series of missiles were "in retaliation" for the June 7, 2017 attacks on Tehran claimed by ISIL. /AFP Photo

Iran sees the Sunni Muslim militants of ISIL as an existential threat to the Islamic Republic where the majority of the population are Shi'ites.

On June 7, ISIL claimed an attack on Tehran’s parliament and the mausoleum of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic Republic, killing 18 people. The Guards fired missiles at ISIL bases in Syria on June 18 in response.

Guards commanders have framed their military involvement in Iraq and Syria, where they are fighting to support the government of President Bashar al-Assad, as a fight against ISIL.

Dozens of members of the Guards, including senior commanders, have been killed in Syria and Iraq.

Source(s): Reuters ,Xinhua News Agency