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Prominent Iranian daily again publishes ‘stark warning’ against Israel

Foreign Ministry mouthpiece warns Israel on front page yet again following military exercise.

By Aryeh Savir, TPS

The Tehran Times, a prominent Iranian daily, used its front page again to issue a “stark warning against Israel,” some two weeks after it printed on its front page a map of Israel with multiple targets together with the threat “Just one wrong move!”

The paper, Iran’s leading international daily, wrote in its lead article in English on Sunday about the recent massive Great Prophet 17  military drill (Payambare Azam 17) and quoted Chief of Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces Major General Mohammad Hossein Bagheri and Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Commander Major General Hossein Salami who “made it clear that whom the drill was meant to deter: Israel.”

The missile part of the drill “is carrying very clear and obvious messages,” Salami stated Friday, “The message of this drill is a serious, real, and field warning to threats by the Zionist regime’s officials that they should take care not to make mistakes and faults and if they make mistakes, we will cut off their hands.”

He said that the difference between an actual attack and the missile drill was “only in changing the angles of launching the missile. Therefore, enemies must watch their words.”

Bagheri hinted that Iran expedited the timing of the drill “due to Israel’s bluster against Iran.”

“This exercise was planned in advance, but the many yet empty threats by the leaders of the Zionist regime [Israel] caused this exercise to take place at this time, and thank God, it was one of the most successful missile exercises of the Islamic Republic of Iran so far,” he said.

The drill featured the firing of Iran’s broad ballistic arsenal. On the last day of the drill, the IRGC simultaneously launched 16 ballistic missiles of various types that hit a mock target resembling Israel’s Dimona nuclear plant. The target was destroyed, “possibly creating a scene of how the real Dimona would look like in case there was an Israeli attack against Iran,” the article said.

“Iran’s latest military drill showed what Israel would face if it dared to attack Iran. The drill also was indicative of the gravity of the situation. Iran has said Israel won’t dare to attack. But at the same time, Iranian military leaders highlighted their combat readiness to respond to any hostile move by Israel,” the article concluded.

Iranian media is tightly controlled by the state. The Tehran Times is owned by the The Islamic Ideology Dissemination Organization, a religious and cultural organization personally overseen by Khamenei. The paper is regarded as a mouthpiece of Iran’s Foreign Ministry.

This repeated threat comes as Iranian representatives are engaged in talks with European representatives on the future of the nuclear deal and the country’s nuclear program.

Members of the British, French and German teams, the E3, stated after the talks last week that negotiations in Vienna were “rapidly reaching the end of the road.” They expressed frustration with Iran’s new demands but pointed to “some technical progress.”

The Vienna talks resume on Monday.

World Israel News staff contributed to this report.