Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Gen. Mohammad Reza Naqdi said in a series of recent television appearances that Israel will soon collapse, and that the United States was powerless to stop Iran, Hezbollah, Hamas and the Iraqi Popular Mobilization Units.
In a series of segments that aired on Iran’s Channel 3 between Sept. 22 and Oct. 8, Naqdi said that the United States was “rotten and crumbling,” and threatened to “turn Tel Aviv and Haifa” into dust in response to any Israeli aggression.
The United States, he added, was concealing the truth about the number of casualties sustained during the Iranian attack on the Ayn al-Asad Airbase on Jan. 7. The Iranian attack was retaliation for the assassination by the United States of IRGC Quds Force commander Gen. Qassem Soleimani in Iraq on Jan. 3.
He went on to state that all claims of Iranian advisers being killed in Syria were “lies and propaganda,” and that not all Quds Force members are Iranian nationals. Iran, he said, has a “popular army” of non-state supporters around the world, which he said was more valuable than national allies as they can operate undetected.
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