TruthNews - Iranian Military Flexes Its Muscles And Continues Bellicose Threats

Iranian Military Flexes Its Muscles And Continues Bellicose Threats

International Christian Embassy Jerusalem, August 25, 2010

In the latest demonstration of its military power, Iran on Wednesday announced that it had successfully tested an upgraded version of a short-range surface-to-surface missile, the Fateh-110. Iranian Defense Minister Gen. Ahmad Vahidi, wanted by Argentinean police for his role in the 1994 terror bombing of the AMIA Jewish community center in Buenos Aries, declared that the missile would enhance the range at which it could effectively engage targets.

"Employing a highly accurate guidance and control system has enabled the missile to hit its targets with great precision," Vahidi told state TV.

The reported test comes the day after Iranian military advisor to Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Maj. Gen. Seyed Yahya Rahim Safavi, told the semi-official Fars news agency that Iran shouldn’t limit the scope of its retaliation for any military strikes on its renegade nuclear program to the Middle East.

"Wisdom tells us that Iran's Armed Forced should prepare and strengthen themselves for all-out defense and retaliatory attacks on the enemies even outside the region by maintaining their full preparedness and boosting their combat capabilities," Safavi stated, adding that such military attacks by Iran’s enemies are unlikely because "Americans and the Zionists are not in proper conditions to launch a military attack against Iran."

Elsewhere, Iranian officials have been aggressively denying reports that economic and diplomatic sanctions designed to convince them to halt their renegade nuclear program are causing any real hardship to the country, with Iran's Central Bank governor boasting on Tuesday that the sanctions would only enhance Iran’s domestic production and increase employment.

Nuclear talks between Iran and world powers are set to commence at the headquarters of the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna in September, and Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehman-Parast said on Tuesday that he welcomed the presence of Turkey and Brazil at the talks. The two emerging powers were responsible for brokering a deal in early June for Iran to transfer a limited amount of its enriched uranium to Turkish soil in exchange for refined fuel from another country. But the US and other Western powers rejected the deal, saying it did not adequately address their concerns.

Despite this, Mehman-Parast told reporters that Iran has already decided that the deal will be the basis for the news round of talks.

Finally, IAEA chief Yukiya Amano paid a low profile visit to Israel Monday and Tuesday, quietly urging the Jewish State to be more open about its nuclear program. Israel has never made any secret about its nuclear power plant at Dimona in the Negev Desert, but has maintained an ambiguous posture about its presumed atomic arsenal, neither confirming nor denying that it possessed them, but maintaining that all of its armed forces exist purely for defensive reasons.