Enraged by serial defeats in region, US targeted IRGC: Top cmdr.

The chief commander of Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) says the United States has blacklisted the elite defense force out of the “vengeance and outrage” resulting from Washington's back-to-back defeats in the region.

Major General Mohammad Ali Jafari made the remarks in separate messages addressed to the Iranian people and authorities in acknowledgement of their support for the Corps after the United States formally designated the force as “a foreign terrorist organization” last week.

The hostile measure prompted popular rallies across Iran in honor of the IRGC and successive supportive statements by officials of all ranks.

Jafari further called the blacklisting an “inane and illegal measure taken by the adventuresome US president and the radicals around him.”

Such a move “is a product of the vengeance and outrage caused by the pharaonic [US] system’s serial defeats in the region,” he added.

The designation, he added, is also a result of “the deadly blows [dealt to Washington] by the Iranian nation, and this popular revolutionary institution (the IRGC), which has been a successful trailblazer in the fight against terrorism.”

He hailed the nation’s support as an indication of national unity and integrity, which served as the key to success in the face of the challenges being posed to the Islamic Republic by the enemy front.

The IRGC has been playing a momentous role in fighting regional terrorism, especially following the emergence of the Takfiri Daesh terror group in Iraq and Syria.

SS