Cmdr. suggests Iran warning made US call off strikes

The head of Iran’s Passive Defense Organization has suggested that a stern warning by Iran compelled the United States to step back from a purported decision to strike targets inside Iran after the downing of an intruding US spy drone.

Speaking on Sunday, Brigadier General Gholamreza Jalali, the head of Iran’s Passive Defense Organization, said that the US had via diplomatic intermediaries conveyed the message that it sought to conduct “a limited operation in some low-value terrain [merely] to save face” and asked Iran not to respond.

“The Islamic Republic’s reply,” he said, “is that we will hold any operation as declaration of war and will respond to it, and that if you started a war, Iran would define its terms and would be the one to end it.”

The drone that Iran shot down was targeted with Iran’s indigenous Khordad 3 air defense system. Its operators received warnings by the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) to leave Iranian airspace before it was shot down.

SS