Iran will continue to keep its military forces in Syria, the head of the elite revolutionary guards has said on Wednesday, openly resisting threats from Israel that they might be targeted by Israel if they chose to stay in Syria.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has on Tuesday said, Israeli military forces would continue to attack the Iranians in Syria and also warned them “to get out of there fast because we will continue with our resolute policy”.
According to Reuters news reports, the Revolutionary Guards top commander, Major General Mohammad Ali Jafari, while rebuffing the Israeli threats, was quoted by the semi-official ISNA news agency as saying that “the Islamic Republic of Iran will keep all its military and revolutionary advisers and its weapons in Syria”.
Jafari called Netanyahu’s threat as a “joke”, and hit back with a warning that the Israeli government “was playing with a lion’s tail”.
Jafari said: “You should be afraid of the day that our precision-guided missiles roar and fall on your head.”
Russia and Iran have backed Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad in on-going seven-year war against the militants and rebels in Syria, and have also sent thousands of military soldiers to the country.
Netanyahu on Sunday claimed Israeli warplanes have carried out an attack on what he called an Iranian arms cache in Syria.