Iran says it'd hit Turkey missile shield if attacked

Tehran officials threaten to hit NATO defense, Israeli nuclear sites if Iran is attacked.

By REUTERS, JPOST.COM STAFF
Iranian Army’s Land Force Academy graduation ceremony 311 R (photo credit: Reuters)
Iranian Army’s Land Force Academy graduation ceremony 311 R
(photo credit: Reuters)
Iran could target installations in Turkey that are part of a planned NATO missile shield in any future conflict, a senior military official said on Saturday, upping the rhetoric against its neighbor with whom relations have soured in recent months.
"We are ready to attack NATO's missile shield in Turkey if we face a threat and then we will follow other aims," the semi-official Mehr news agency quoted Amir Ali Hajizadeh, head of the Revolutionary Guards' aerospace division, as saying.
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Tehran has made clear its displeasure at Turkey's agreement in September to deploy a NATO missile early warning system which it sees as a US ploy to protect Israel from any counter-attack should the Jewish state target Iran's nuclear facilities.
Once warm relations between Iran and Turkey have been strained this year due to the missile shield and Ankara's outspoken criticism of Syrian President Bashar Assad's violent crackdown on popular unrest.
Turkey and Iran, the Middle East's two major non-Arab Muslim states, are vying for influence in the post-Arab Spring region and Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's military adviser accused Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan of setting its foreign policy to please Washington.
Earlier Saturday a senior military advisor to Khamenei warned that Tehran would retaliate against an Israeli military strike by hitting back at nuclear facilities in Israel.
Former head of the Guards' Political Bureau Brigadier Yadollah Javani said, "If Israel fires [a] rocket at one of our nuclear facilities or vital centers, it should know that any point of Israel, such as its nuclear facilities, would be a target for our rockets and we have [that] capability," Iranian news agency ISNA reported.
"Today, our enemies have been locked in a quagmire and they see no way out, so they make contradictory comments," he contended. "They raise military threats against Iran whereas they do not possess such a capability."
Major-General Yahya Rahim-Safavi said earlier this week that any attack from Israel would trigger a response from Tehran's Hezbollah allies in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza.
"The Zionists know well that if they start a war they will be targeted strongly from South Lebanon, from Hamas and also from Iran," he told state broadcaster IRIB.
Click here for full Jpost coverage of the Iranian threat
Click here for full Jpost coverage of the Iranian threat