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An American attack on Syria will result in the destruction of Israel and have severe repercussions for the US and its allies, the commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards said.

A possible war in Syria “will result in the imminent destruction of the Zionist regime of Israel,” General Mohammad Ali Jafari said late Wednesday, according to a report Thursday in the state-sponsored Iranian Tasnim News Agency.

The American “proxy war scenario” in Syria has failed, so Washington and the West have resorted to a “direct military threat,” which, if carried out, will have “severe consequences,” he added.

The remarks from Jafari came at a time of intense international debate over a possible US-led strike on Syria, and followed bellicose statements from other high-ranking Iranian officials. Iran is a major backer of the Syrian government.

Military intervention in Syria by the US and its allies will “cost them dearly,” the chief of staff of the Iranian armed forces, General Hassan Firouzabadi, said Wednesday evening. “If the US attacks, the Zionists will burn,” he said, according to Israel’s Channel 2 news. He added that Israel would be the “sole beneficiary” of military escalation in Syria, which would have “far-reaching, grave consequences.”

“Any new military operation could prove to be a disaster not only for the region but also for humanity …and only the Zionists would benefit from that,” Firouzabadi said. The Syrian civil war, he added, had been “imposed” on the country from outside forces.

In comments Wednesday directed at the US, Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said in a meeting with members of the new Iranian cabinet in Tehran that “the US threats and possible intervention in Syria are a disaster for the region. And if such an act is done, certainly, the Americans will sustain damage like when they interfered in Iraq and Afghanistan.”

He cautioned the US and its allies that their military intervention in Syria would bring increase in hatred of them, the Fars news agency reported.

“Starting this fire will be like a spark in a large store of gunpowder, with unclear and unspecified outcomes and consequences,” Khamenei said.

The speaker of the Iranian parliament, Ali Larjiani, said, “The result of such an unwise measure (a military attack on Syria) is regional anarchy which will entangle the naïve countries of the region.”

Speaking in parliament, he said that if any war was waged against Syria, “the country which has been destroyed by the terrorists during the past two years will not sustain so much damage as the warmongers will receive in this war.”

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