No Limits to Protection of National Interests: Iran’s Defense Minister

Asked by reporters about the missile strikes that the IRGC launched against targets in Idlib and Erbil in the early hours of Tuesday, the Iranian defense minister said on the sidelines of a weekly cabinet session on Wednesday, “We attach no limits to (measures aimed at) protection of our national interests and people and will take (such measures) mightily.”

He noted that Iran condemns acts of terrorism all over the world and shows reaction, without reservation, to any measure in violation of the rights of the Iranian people.

Reaffirming Iran’s respect for the sovereignty, interests and regulations of other nations, Ashtiani said Iran won’t allow any party to take mischievous actions at the border.

“We will show reactions to the threats against the Islamic Republic of Iran posed from any area,” he underlined.

On Tuesday, the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps launched nocturnal missile strikes on a base of Mossad in Iraq’s Erbil and the strongholds of Daesh in Syria.

The missile strike on the Mossad espionage base in Erbil was carried out in response to the Israeli assassination of a number of commanders of the IRGC and the resistance front, a statement from the IRGC said.

General Seyed Razi Mousavi, a member of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps serving as a military adviser in Syria, was martyred in an Israeli airstrike in the residential neighborhood of Zeinabiyah district in the suburbs of Damascus on December 25.

Later, on January 3, Daesh carried out a terrorist attack on an event held in commemoration of the anniversary of the martyrdom of late commander Lt. General Qassem Soleimani in Kerman, which resulted in the tragic loss of over 90 lives and injured nearly 300 individuals.