Iran threatens to speed up missile program

The IRGC said it will boost missile development in response to Trump’s threat to designate it as a terror group. 

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) denounced President Donald Trump as “featherbrained” based on his “recent insults against the Iranian nation and his hostile comments about the IRGC,” which pledged to press on with its plans to broaden and boost Iran’s missile power.

Trump announced in a speech on Friday a plan for “tough sanctions” on the IRGC for supporting terrorism and destabilizing the Middle East. The new measures will include designating the IRGC as a terrorist organization in its entirety, as well as addressing the Islamic Republic’s ongoing development and testing of ballistic missiles.

Iran’s Tasnim news agency reported Thursday that the IRGC lashed out at Trump for his stance on Iran, saying his plan to impose sanctions on the IRGC was an “indication of his anger at the IRGC’s effective role in the region and reveal[s] that the US and Israel have failed to carry out their evil schemes to redraw regional borders and undermine Muslim nations.”

Iran has repeatedly charged the US with launching a war against Islam.

In its statement, the IRGC stressed that it will keep trying to “enhance its regional influence” and boost Iran’s missile capabilities “incessantly and with more acceleration.”

The IRGC is directly involved in the occupation of four countries: Iraq, Syria, Yemen and Lebanon.

In his speech, Trump said that Iran is “under the control of a fanatical regime” that has “spread death, destruction and chaos all around the globe.” He warned that “history has shown that the longer we ignore a threat the more dangerous that threat becomes.”

In a televised address to the nation later in the day, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani blasted the comments by Trump, reiterating that the Islamic Republic “will not surrender to such false statements and hate speech.”

Addressing a United Nations Security Council (UNSC) meeting on the “Situation in the Middle East” on Wednesday, US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley stated that Iran’s “most threatening act is its repeated ballistic missile launches, including the launch this summer of an ICBM enabling missile.”

“This should be a clarion call to everyone in the United Nations,” Haley said. “When a rogue regime starts down the path of ballistic missiles, it tells us that we will soon have another North Korea on our hands.”

By: World Israel News Staff