Iran's supreme leader warned top officials Wednesday that their country was facing threats of espionage and subversion from foreign foes who sought to undermine the Islamic Republic and its increasingly large sphere of influence in the Middle East.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei told Iranian Ministry of Intelligence officials to be ready to fight an "intelligence war" over public opinion and the integrity of the country's ruling ideology that required both offensive and defensive strategies to win. Without naming any specific foes, Khamenei praised his spies for thwarting the plots of "the intelligence systems of the opposition" and recommended forming a united front at a time when tensions were rising with the U.S., Israel and Saudi Arabia.
"We are now placed in the middle of this great, big battlefield; one side of it being the System of the Islamic Revolution; the other side is the huge, powerful front of the enemies," Khamenei said, according to his official website. "We have to resist during this war, against the plans of the adverse front; to overcome the enemy, we have to develop offensive strategies besides defensive ones, so that a strategical blueprint on playing field is laid out by our intelligence services."
The Iranian Foreign Ministry came out strongly Tuesday against Israeli airstrikes that killed Iranian personnel on a Syrian air base last week, warning that "Tel Aviv will be punished for its aggressive action." The attack was followed by a trilateral U.S., French and U.K. cruise missile strike Friday on three Syrian government research centers allegedly involved in a chemical weapons attack in rebel territory the previous weekend. Iran is a staunch ally of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and, along with Russia, has helped him overcome a seven-year uprising supported by the West, Turkey and Gulf Arab states. READ MORE
