ran cleric: Tehran will strike Israel if attacked

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TEHRAN, Iran — A top cleric with Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guard has reiterated warnings that Tehran would strike archenemy Israel if the Jewish state and its Western allies attacked Iran.

A report by the semiofficial Fars news agency on Tuesday quoted cleric Mojtaba Zolnour as saying the “enemies know if they fire a missile toward Iran, the dust from explosions by Iranian missiles will rise in Tel Aviv” even as “their missile is still in the air.”

The cleric issued a similar warning in October, when he said Iran would “blow up the heart of Israel” if the United States or the Jewish state attacked it first.

His comments are not unusual. 

Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has since 2005 often called for Israel’s destruction and predicted the demise for the Jewish state.