The morning after Iranian attacks on neighboring Pakistan and Iraq, Iran’s defense minister vowed Wednesday that his country would “not set any limits” on using its missile capabilities against enemies whenever necessary.
“We are a missile power in the world,” the minister, Mohammad Reza Ashtami, told reporters at a Cabinet meeting, according to state media. “Wherever they want to threaten the Islamic Republic of Iran, we will react, and this reaction will definitely be proportionate, tough and decisive.”
Iran has demonstrated its willingness to use its military might — even when it involves striking the territory of its allies and neighbors — with back-to-back attacks on Syria late Monday, then Iraq and Pakistan on Tuesday. The strikes could further inflame a widening conflict across the Middle East.
Iran said it had launched the missiles at targets connected to a major terrorist attack this month, the country’s deadliest ever, as well as in retaliation for the targeted killings of Iranian and Iran-allied commanders, which Iran has blamed on Israel.
Analysts say Iran is walking a fine line, hoping to flex its strength to show conservative supporters of the government at home that it can hit its enemies — without getting directly entangled in a fight with Israel, the United States or their allies.
By Tuesday morning, murals and banners had gone up around the Iranian capital, Tehran, praising the missile attacks and vowing revenge. At Palestine Square, a mural on the side of a building depicted a missile being fired. It bore a caption that warned, in Hebrew and Farsi, “Prepare your coffins.”
Some conservative Iranians celebrated the missile strikes as appropriate vengeance, a defiant show of force against regional foes.
One of those foes is the Islamic State group, which claimed responsibility for a bombing in Kerman, Iran, that killed nearly 100 people this month. Iran said its attacks had also targeted “anti-Iran terror groups in occupied territories of Syria.” It hit Idlib province in Syria, which is controlled not by President Bashar Assad, a close ally of Iran, but by a Syrian opposition group.
Iran accused Israel of being behind the targeted killing of a senior Iranian commander in Syria in December. On Tuesday, Tehran claimed it was targeting Israel in one of the strikes on Iraq’s northern Kurdistan region, accusing it of operating a spy outpost there.
Officials in Iraq rejected the charge, and the country pulled its ambassador from Tehran in protest.
Militants in Pakistan were also apparently in Iran’s sights in one of the missile strikes on the country’s Baluchistan region. Iran said it had struck a remote mountainous area believed to be the base of Jaish al-Adl, a Sunni militant group that claimed responsibility for a December attack that killed 11 security officers in Rask, a town near Iran’s border with Pakistan.
Pakistan also denounced the strike.
Iran said it had launched the missiles at targets connected to a major terrorist attack this month, the country's deadliest ever, as well as in retaliation for the targeted killings of Iranian and Iran-allied commanders, which Iran has blamed on Israel
The morning after Iranian attacks on neighboring Pakistan and Iraq, Iran's defense minister vowed Wednesday that his country would "not set any limits" on using its missile capabilities against enemies whenever necessary.
We are a missile power in the world," the minister, Mohammad Reza Ashtiani, told reporters at a Cabinet meeting, according to state media. "Wherever they want to threaten the Islamic Republic of Iran, we will react, and this reaction will definitely ...
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