Daily Times

Iran will hunt down any aggressor, even if it carries out a restricted attack, and seek to destroy it, the head of the elite Revolutionary Guards said on Saturday (Sept 21), after attacks on Saudi oil sites for which Iran was blamed by Riyadh and US officials.

“Be careful, limited aggression will not remain limited. We will pursue any aggressor,” the head of the Guards, Major-General Hossein Salami, said on state TV.

“We are after punishment and we will continue until the full destruction of any aggressor.”

Notably, Iran denies involvement in the attacks, which were already claimed by Yemen’s Houthi movement, a military group aligned with Iran and currently fighting a Saudi-led alliance in Yemen’s civil war.

However, Iran’s foreign minister earlier condemned renewed US sanctions following the Saudi attacks on Sept 14 as an attempt to deprive ordinary Iranians with the basic necessities such as food and medicine and said the move was a sign of US desperation.

Furthermore, the United States on Friday imposed a new round of sanctions on Iran, some aimed at its central bank and sovereign wealth fund.

“This is a sign of US desperation… When they repeatedly sanction the same institution, this means their attempt at bringing the Iranian nation to its knees under ‘maximum pressure’ has failed,” Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif told reporters in remarks shown on state television.

“But this is dangerous and unacceptable as an attempt at blocking… the Iranian people’s access to food and medicine,” Zarif said, speaking after arriving in New York for the annual UN General Assembly next week.

Meanwhile, there were reports on social media that a number of Iranian servers and websites – including those of some petrochemical firms – were under a cyber-attack. However, there was no immediate official comment, and the websites of the main state oil company NIOC appeared to be functioning normally. Residents said their Internet access was not affected.

NetBlocks, an organization that monitors internet connectivity, said its data showed “intermittent disruptions” to some Internet services in Iran starting on Friday evening.