Iranian Defense Minister Brigadier General Ahmad Vahidi said that Iran has up to 150,000 missiles pointed at Israel, according
to the semi-official Iranian FARS news agency.
According to the
report, Vahidi questioned threats against the Islamic Republic from the Jewish State, asking "How many missiles have they prepared themselves for?
10,000? 20,000? 50,000? 100,000, 150,000 or more?"
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The Iranian defense minister also warned against an offensive by the United States, saying it would meet a hard defensive line were it to attack Iran.
"The US and its allies should know that Iran is so powerful that its battling will teach the US how to fight and what war and warrior mean," Vahidi told a crowd of 50,000 volunteer soldiers in Bushehr, a city where one of the country's nuclear power plants is located.
Iran claims the country's nuclear program is for peaceful purposes, but an incriminating International Atomic Energy Agency report said that Tehran has continued to covertly develop
nuclear-weapons technology.
Since the release of that report, Western nations have called for international pressure on the regime in Tehran to halt their nuclear program.
The United States, the United Kingdom and Canada cast stringent sanctions on
Iran's energy and financial sectors, a move which pushed Iran to expel the British ambassador.
France
and the Netherlands have called for similar action against the Islamic Republic. On Saturday,
Tehran made
a rare threat against Turkey, saying it could target the recently installed NATO anti-missile shield in any future conflict.
"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.Reuters
contributed to this report.