"Any Basij member, as Islamist suicide-fighter [Hossein] Fahmideh did, can accomplish a huge task. The Persian Gulf region and the strategically important Strait of Ormuz are such that the smallest action will lead to major consequences in the region," Ali Fadavi said.
During the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war a 13-year-old Iranian boy, Hossein Fahmideh, blew up an Iraqi tank in a suicide attack. Fahmideh continues to have hero status in Iran, and a monument to the fighter stands in the capital, Tehran.
The latest statement follows a series of warnings issued by Iranian army officials against attacks on the country since United States President George W. Bush suggested World War III could break out if Tehran does not abandon its nuclear program.
However, most Iranian officials have dismissed hawkish comments from Bush and his deputy, Dick Cheney, as empty threats that Washington cannot carry through due to its entanglement in what Tehran has called "Iraq's swamp".
On October 20, General Mahmoud Chaharbaghi, the top missile commander of the Revolutionary Guards, said: "Within the first minute of any attack by enemies against our country, the missile and artillery unit of the ground force is capable of firing 11,000 missiles and shells at targets that are known to us."
General Yahya Rahim Safavi, a former Revolutionary Guards chief, said on Thursday that the U.S. would not dare attack Iran, because of the inevitable oil price jump that would follow.
