Tehran Times – Major General Hossein Salami, the chief commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guard Corps (IRGC), has told Lebanon’s Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah that Israel will face “a crushing response from the axis of resistance” after the pager and radio attacks.
“Such terrorist acts are undoubtedly the result of the Zionist regime’s despair and successive failures,” Salami said in his message to the Hezbollah leader. “We will witness the destruction of this bloodthirsty and criminal regime.”
Elsewhere in his message, the IRGC chief said the Israeli regime that “has failed to achieved any of its goals in Gaza despite a year of war and committing various crimes with the limitless and stupid support of the Western countries will undoubtedly fail to achieve any success by detonating pagers and walkie-talkies against the noble Lebanese women, men and children.”
Salami also said the “enemy fears face-to-face clash” it resorts to such crimes against civilians to “postpone its death and cover up its repeated and scandalous defeats from the eyes of the world.”
Just one day after pagers used by Hezbollah members were exploded, more electronic devices detonated in Lebanon on Wednesday in what appeared to be a second wave of sophisticated, deadly attacks that targeted an extraordinary number of people.
According to the Associated Press, the explosions have also deepened concerns about the scope of potentially compromised devices, particularly after such bombings have killed or injured so many civilians.
On Tuesday, pagers used by hundreds of Hezbollah members exploded almost simultaneously in parts of Lebanon as well as Syria. The attack killed at least 12 people — including two young children — and wounded thousands more.
An American official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said Israel briefed the U.S. on the operation — where small amounts of explosives hidden in the pagers were detonated.
A day after these deadly explosions, more detonations triggered in Beirut and parts of Lebanon Wednesday — including several blasts heard at a funeral in Beirut for three Hezbollah members and a child killed by Tuesday’s explosions, according to Associated Press journalists at the scene.
