Iranian military rejects revolutionary guards' claim

The Iranian military today rejected a statement from a top Revolutionary Guards commander that Israel would be Iran’s first retaliatory target in response to any US attack, according to an Iranian news agency.

Brig Gen Alireza Afshar, an armed forces spokesman and deputy to Iran’s Chief of Military Staff, said Mohammad Ebrahim Dehghani’s statement “is his personal view and has no validity as far as the Iranian military officials are concerned,” according to the Entekhab News Agency.

Dehghani was quoted by the Iranian Student News Agency yesterday as saying: “We have announced that wherever (in Iran) America does make any mischief, the first place we target will be Israel.”

His threat reinforced the Iranian president’s call for Israel to be “wiped off the map".