ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Iran will mobilize its allied armed groups across the region if the United States launches a ground operation against it, a senior official in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ (IRGC) external operations arm said on Sunday, hours after US President Donald Trump said he was weighing a decision on Iran.
Defa Press on Sunday cited Iraj Masjedi, deputy coordinator of the IRGC’s Quds Force, as saying that Iran and its regional proxies and allied groups would respond forcefully to any US action and “certainly defeat” the enemy.
The Quds Force is the IRGC unit responsible for operations abroad and maintaining ties with Tehran-aligned armed groups across the region.
“Iran is stronger today than it was in previous decades and that the same is true of the Axis of Resistance,” Masjedi claimed.
The so-called Axis of Resistance is a network of Tehran-aligned armed groups across the Middle East, including in Iraq, Lebanon and Yemen.
Trump told Rudaw at the White House on Saturday that he is weighing a decision on Iran, warning Tehran that it faces an “easy way or the hard way.”
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said at a gathering of ambassadors on Sunday that there is no military solution to the war, adding that “only negotiations based on justice and fairness" could end the conflict. He warned that if Washington attacks again, Tehran’s response would be “stronger than before.”
Iranian foreign ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baqaei told his weekly press conference on Sunday that Tehran had neighboring countries against allowing their territory to be used by the United States or Israel to launch attacks against Iran.
“Undoubtedly, any renewed attack on the country’s national security launched from the territory of neighboring countries will face a fundamental, different and regret-inducing response,” Baqaei said, according to the semi-official Tasnim news agency.
