Iran war threat: Tehran begins war games after Turkey airstrikes ‘We’re ready’
Iran war threat: Tehran begins war games after Turkey airstrikes ‘We’re ready’
IRAN has launched a series of military exercises in the north west of the country close to the Turkish border, further ratcheting up tensions in the region after Ankara’s military offensive on Kurdish forces in northern Syria.
A senior Iranian military commander said the war games were a warning to the country’s enemies no to miscalculate the Islamic republic’s power and the readiness of its armed forces. Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan ordered air strikes on the town of Qamishli after US President Donald Trump announced American troops would step aside to allow for the operation, following that up with a ground offensive. On the same day, Iran’s Fars news agency confirmed the exercises, involving rapid reaction and mobile offensive units of the Army Ground Force supported by the Airborne helicopters, had got underway in the Orumiyeh region, barely 20 miles from the Turkish border.
Major General Seyed Abdolrahim Mousavi, who is overseeing the operation, said: “We are prepared for any level of threats that the enemy has designed and will confront it.
“The message to the enemies is that if they make the wrong calculations, they should know that the children of this land are ready to resist with their full power at any time and place.”
Major General Mousavi said the operation had the motto: “One target, one bullet.”
He explained Ground Forces had been informed of the drills at midnight, and had been mobilised immediately, emphasising all of Iran’s forces were “at the peaks of preparedness”.
On September 20, fighter jets of the Iranian Army’s Air Force (IRIAF) and the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) staged joint aerial drills over the Persian Gulf waters, Fars reported.
Various combat, tactical, reconnaissance, transport, and tanker aircraft of the IRIAF and the IRGC were involved, it added.
Iran is closely allied to the regime of embattled Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
State news agency IRNA reported the country’s President Hassan Rouhani as saying: “We have openly said that the only solution to ensure safety and security in southern Turkey and northern Syria is the presence of the Syrian army.
“We are calling on our friendly and brotherly neighbour Turkey to act with more patience and restraint, and to revise its decision and chosen path.”
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Read more at: Express
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