Iran gives reason for its latest war games

Iran’s top military officials have said that the country’s war games this week were a response to “Zionist empty threats,” claiming that if Israeli representatives were to step out of line, Tehran would “cut off their hands.”

Speaking on Friday, Chief of General Staff of the Armed Forces Major General Mohammad Hossein Bagheri said that this week’s Great Prophet 17 military drills were a success that highlighted Iran’s military might. 

“In this exercise, 16 missiles fired from different platforms hit a certain target accurately,” Bagheri told reporters on the sidelines of the drills’ final day. He claimed only a small fraction of the country’s missile capability was demonstrated.

In accompanying remarks, Major General Hossein Salami, the commander-in-chief of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), said the drills were a response to empty threats made by arch-foe Israel. “If the officials of this regime do a damn thing, we will cut off their hands,” Salami stated.

Brigadier General Nilforoushan, a spokesman for the war games, also contended that the drills had gone to plan, claiming that electronic warfare operations succeeded in suppressing the hypothetical enemy air defense shield.

The five-day military exercise began on Monday with an air defense drill over the Bushehr nuclear power plant in the early hours of the morning. The war games, as a whole, involved ground, naval, and air force units from the IRGC.