Iran Capable of Sinking US Aircraft Carriers in Case of Attack: Top General
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – A high-ranking Iranian general warned the US to avoid making any mistakes, saying Iran is capable of striking US aircraft carriers so hard that they would go down like submarines.
“Iran is capable of turning US aircraft carriers into submarines in a few hours,” the top military adviser to Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei Major General Yahya Rahim Safavi warned, but at the same time he expressed hope that nothing would happen in the final weeks of US President Donald Trump’s presidency.
“We will never initiate a war, but we will respond decisively and with our utmost power and readiness if anyone attacks Iran,” said the former commander of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) General Rahim Safavi during an interview with Press TV.
The general made the remarks as Iran marks the first anniversary of the martyrdom of its world-renowned commander, Lieutenant General Qassem Soleimani, who was assassinated in a US drone raid on January 3, 2020, while in Baghdad in an official visit. Soleimani’s Iraqi trench mate Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, deputy commander of Iraq’s Hashd al-Sha’abi (Popular Mobilization Units or PMU), an anti-terror force, was also martyred in the Trump-ordered terrorist attack.
Elsewhere in his remarks, Rahim Safavi said General Soleimani managed to expand Iran’s area of influence from Iraq to Syria, Lebanon and the Mediterranean, which inflicted a “strategic defeat” on the Americans.
But, he continued, “I think the general’s martyrdom was even a bigger defeat (for the Americans)," explaining that the assassination exposed the true face of the American rulers to the world.
“Suddenly, all nations of the world were able to see the naked face of the Americans” who claimed to champion democracy and freedom, Rahim Safavi remarked.
He also said the revenge for Soleimani’s assassination still remains to be taken.
Tensions have been running high between Washington and Tehran in recent weeks, partly because of fears in Washington of attacks on its positions in West Asia during the martyrdom anniversary of the two popular commanders.
Following Lt. General Soleimani’s assassination, Iran vowed to exact its “tough revenge” on the US, and it delivered on that promise five days later when it overtly targeted the US air base of Ain al-Assad in the western Iraqi province of Anbar.
Iran says that its “tough revenge” is not over yet, with top officials noting that only the expulsion of all American forces from the region would meet that end.
