Any Attack on Iran to Be Met with A Painful Response: IRGC Chief

Speaking at a funeral held on Thursday for Brigadier General Abbas Nilforoushan, an IRGC adviser killed in Lebanon, Major General Salami said the Israeli regime mistakenly thought that by assassinating Haniyeh, Nasrallah and Nilforoushan, it would cause problems for the Axis of Resistance.

But Operation True Promise II and the penetration of Iranian missiles through Israel's Iron Dome disrupted their equations, he said.

“The enemy should be aware that any attack on Iran will met with a painful response,” the IRGC chief said. “Operation True Promise II was not our defensive power in its entirety but merely a warning.”

The Israeli regime, he said, will receive a response for committing crimes against Muslim nations.

“We clearly declare that we know the weaknesses of the enemy and that we are capable of exposing its vulnerabilities.”

The IRGC chief also dismissed the idea that the resistance front would be stopped by the martyrdom of its leaders and commanders.

Tens of thousands of people paid tribute to Brigadier General Abbas Nilforoushan in a mass funeral ceremony held in his home town of Isfahan, central Iran, on Thursday.

The ceremony on Thursday saw black-clad mourners, in their thousands, carrying Nilforoushan's coffin, draped with the national Iranian flag, through the main streets and squares in the central Iranian city.

The large crowd attended the funeral service with the flags of Iran, Palestine and the Lebanese resistance movement Hezbollah in their hands as they chanted the slogans of “Death to Israel,” and “Death to America,” in solidarity with the people of Gaza and Lebanon and in support of the resistance front.

The top commander was laid to rest in Isfahan’s Golestan Shohada cemetery.

General Nilforoushan was martyred alongside Hezbollah Secretary General Seyed Hassan Nasrallah in a heavy Israeli attack that targeted a number of residential buildings in Beirut’s southern suburb of Dahiyeh on September 27.

The body of the Iranian commander was taken from Beirut to the holy Iraqi cities of Karbala and Najaf and his funeral prayers were led by a representative of Iraq's top cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani.

His remains were transferred to Tehran on Tuesday and to Mashhad on Wednesday, receiving somber homage from mourners as well as Iranian military and government officials in both cities.

The IRGC announced the discovery of Nilforoushan’s body in a statement on Friday, describing him as one of the Islamic Republic’s “senior advisers” as well as a “stalwart and intellectual” serviceman, who had been martyred as a result of “the ruthless and bloodthirsty Zionist regime’s atrocity.”

On October 1, Iran responded to the Israeli assassination of Hamas political bureau chief Ismail Haniyeh, the Hezbollah leader, and Nilforoushan by launching as many as 200 ballistic missiles toward the occupying regime’s military and intelligence bases all over the occupied Palestinian territories.

Dubbed Operation True Promise II, the retaliatory strike dealt a severe blow to the illegal regime all the more ruinous than its prequel in April, with Tel Aviv having so far declined to reveal the extent of loss it suffered despite vowing to respond on several occasions.

The latest retaliation inflicted significant damage on the targets that included the headquarters of the regime’s Mossad spy agency, the regime’s Nevatim airbase that houses its F-35 warplanes, and the Hatzerim base that was used towards enabling Nasrallah’s assassination.