FROM JOSEPH FARAH'S G2 BULLETIN

Iran issues veiled military threat

Follows report that NATO preparing to attack Syria


Posted: October 06, 2011
12:50 am Eastern
© 2011 WND

Editor's Note: The following report is excerpted from Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin, the premium online newsletter published by the founder of WND. Subscriptions are $99 a year or, for monthly trials, just $9.95 per month for credit card users, and provide instant access for the complete reports.

WASHINGTON – Iran has moved quickly to warn against any military strike on Syria by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, suggesting that Tehran is prepared to escalate an already serious crisis into a full-blown military conflict if Damascus is attacked, according to a report from Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin.

Shi'ite Iran, which sides with the Shi'ite Alawite regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, issued the warning against any "foreign meddling" in Syria following published remarks attributed to al-Assad that he would set fire to the Middle East, particularly Israel, if NATO were to attack Syria.

Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian accused the Western powers of trying to push Syria into a crisis in an effort to establish a new balance of power "in the interest of the Zionist regime of Israel."

"Iran condemns any foreign interference in Syria and believes that such a move will push the whole region into crisis," said Amir Abdollahian, who made the comment to Qatar's Crown Prince Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani in Doha.

According to the Iranian Fars News Agency, al-Assad purportedly made the comment to Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, who was in Damascus to deliver a warning to al-Assad from the United States.

"If a crazy measure is taken against Damascus," al-Assad was said to have told Davutoglu, "I will need not more than six hours to transfer hundreds of rockets and missiles to the Golan Heights to fire them at Tel Aviv."

Al-Assad also reportedly told the Turkish foreign minister that he would call upon the Syrian and Iranian-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon to launch rocket and missile attacks into Israel.

In previous comments, Hezbollah has said that it would not attack Israel unless Lebanon, Syria or Iran is attacked.

In recent days, Iranian Ayatollah Jafar Shoujouni, a senior Shi'ite scholar and prominent member of Iran's Combatant Clergy Association, said Hezbollah Secretary-General Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah confirmed that the Shi'ite group would attack Israel if Tehran were attacked.

"If Israelis come near Tehran, we will destroy Tel Aviv," Shojouni quoted Nasrallah as saying.

If Syria were to be overthrown, it would be a major blow to Tehran's designs for the Middle East.

Tehran sees the demonstrations and protests by people throughout the Middle East and North Africa as emanating from its own 1979 Iranian revolution in which a secular regime was replaced by one run by a conservative clergy that imposed Shariah law.

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