Iranian Revolutionary Guards commander Amirali Hajizadeh said US bases in Afghanistan, the UAE and Qatar, as well as US aircraft carriers operating in the Gulf, were all within the range of Iranian missiles. Cdr Hajizadeh, head of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards’ airspace division, said: “They are within our reach and we can hit them if the Americans make a move. Our land-to-sea missiles have a range of 450 miles and the US aircraft carriers are our targets.”
Cdr Hajizadeh said the Guards had improved the precision of their missiles named the Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar, Al Dhafra base in the United Arab Emirates and Kandahar base in Afghanistan as potential targets if soaring tensions boil over.
Relations between the two countries went from bad to worse when Donald Trump pulled out of an international agreement on Iran’s nuclear programme in May and reimposed sanctions on Tehran.
The deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), was intended to curb Iran’s nuclear energy programme, which the West maintained was to create a nuclear bomb.
The JCPOA stipulated Iran must limit its nuclear programme in exchange for the lifting of crippling economic sanctions but Mr Trump rubbished the deal, calling it a “horrible one-sided” nuclear agreement.
He said the agreement was flawed because it did not include curbs on Iran’s development of ballistic missiles or its support for proxies in Syria, Yemen, Lebanon and Iraq.
The Islamic Republic’s government has ruled out negotiations with Washington over its military capabilities, particularly its missile programme run by the Guards.
Iran, which insists its missile programme is purely defensive, has threatened to disrupt oil shipments through the Strait of Hormuz in the Gulf if the US tries to strangle Iranian oil exports.
Leading figures in the Iranian army hit out at the move from US President Donald Trump, vowing to react with impunity.
Major General Mohammad Ali Jafari staged a blistering intervention while speaking in the Iranian city of Qazvin.
The Iranian military commander said: “The United States is a regime formed on the basis of capitalism, racial discrimination and hegemonism.
“Our hostility toward them will continue.”
In October, the Revolutionary Guards fired missiles at ISIS militants in Syria after the Islamist group took responsibility for an attack at a military parade in Iran that killed 25 people, nearly half of them members of the Guards.