TEHRAN — A fiery anti-Israel speech by Iranian leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, delivered shortly after a successful Iranian satellite launch, added to growing global tensions Friday, as Israel warned that it might mount a preemptive strike against the Islamic republic’s nuclear facilities despite U.S. objections.
“From now onward, we will support and help any nations, any groups fighting against the Zionist regime across the world, and we are not afraid of declaring this,” Khamenei said during a rare Friday prayer lecture at Tehran University.
“The Zionist regime is a true cancer tumor on this region that should be cut off,” the supreme leader said. “And it definitely will be cut off.Here’s the NY Slimes report:
In Tehran, the speech by the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, made during Friday Prayer and broadcast live to the nation, came amid deepening American concern about a possible military strike on Iran’s nuclear enrichment sites by Israel, whose leaders delivered blunt new warnings on Thursday about what they called the need to stop Iran’s nuclear program. Israel considers a nuclear-armed Iran a threat to its existence
The ayatollah also issued an unusually blunt warning that Iran would support militant groups opposing Israel, an action that some analysts said could be held up by Israel as a casus belli.
Reinforcing the concern, ABC News reported on Friday that Israeli consular officials were warning of possible attacks on Israeli government sites abroad and synagogues and Jewish schools. ABC quoted an internal Israeli document as saying, “We predict that the threat on our sites around the world will increase.”
Without being specific, Ayatollah Khamenei said that Iran “had its own tools” to respond to threats of war and would use them “if necessary,” the Mehr news agency reported.
Ayatollah Khamenei referred to the sanctions as “painful and crippling,” according to Iranian news agencies, acknowledging the effect of recent measures aimed at cutting off Iran’s Central Bank from the international financial system. But he also said the sanctions would ultimately benefit his country. “They will make us more self-reliant,” he said, according to a translation by Iran’s semiofficial Fars news agency.
