Attack will spark 'world war'
2008-08-30 15:41
Tehran - A senior military commander warned on Saturday that any attack on Iran would start a new world war, as Tehran pressed on with its controversial nuclear drive despite the risk of further UN sanctions.
"Any aggression against Iran will start a world war," deputy chief of staff for defence publicity, Brigadier General Masoud Jazayeri, said in a statement carried by the state news agency IRNA.
Iran is under international pressure to halt uranium enrichment, a process which lies at the core of fears about Iran's nuclear programme as it can make nuclear fuel as well as the fissile core of an atom bomb.
"The unrestrained greed of the US leadership and global Zionism... is gradually leading the world to the edge of a precipice," Jazayeri said, citing the unrest in Afghanistan, Iraq, Sudan and Georgia.
"It is evident that if such a challenge occurs, the fake and artificial regimes will be eliminated before anything," he said, without naming any countries.
Military action not ruled out
Iran does not recognise Israel, which is often described by officials in Tehran as a "fake regime" and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has provoked itnernational outrage saying it should be wiped off the map.
The United States and its staunch ally Israel, the region's sole if undeclared nuclear armed nation, accuse Iran of seeking atomic weapons under the guise of a civilian nuclear programme.
The United States has never ruled out military action against Iran over its defiance of international demands for an enrichment freeze, but so far is pursuing the diplomatic route.
In recent months, several Israeli politicians have talked of the possibility of a pre-emptive military strike against Iranian nuclear facilities to avoid any possibility of Tehran acquiring an atomic weapon.