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Iran has renewed its threat to launch missile strikes against Israel.
A leading cleric in the regime of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Teheran would strike Israel in case of a U.S. attack on Iran. The cleric said Iran was capable of striking any part of the Jewish state.
“If they [the United States and Israel] want to carry out an aggression against Iran, they should be afraid of the day that our 2,000-kilometer range missile will hit the heart of Tel Aviv,” Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami said on Tuesday.
Over the last two years, Iran has developed the enhanced Shihab-3 intermediate-range missile. The missile, with a range of 2,000 kilometers, was said to be capable of accommodating a nuclear warhead.
It was the first time in months that Iran wielded its missile threat against Israel. The statement came as Iran claimed responsibility for helping Hizbullah fire nearly 4,000 rockets into Israel in the 33-day war that ended on August 14.
“The 70-kilometer-range Hizbullah missiles turned Israeli cities into ghost cities,” Khatami, a member of Iran’s Assembly of Experts, told Iranian television. “[U.S. President George] Bush and [Israeli Prime Minister Ehud]Olmert should learn their lesson and understand that playing with Islam is like messing with the lion’s tail.”
Iran was said to have supplied Hizbullah with a range of surface-to-surface rockets, anti-tank missiles and other systems in the war with Israel. Iranian officials have expressed satisfaction with Hizbullah’s performance.
“I congratulate Hizbullah for its victory, which was the victory of Islam,” Khatami said. “This was a disgraceful defeat for America and the Zionist regime.”
