'World will be astonished': IRGC warns of new weapons capabilities
IRGC spokesperson Hossein Mohebbi says Iran has new weapons and targets ready if the US launches another attack, as Qatar works to revive Tehran-Washington talks.
The world will be "astonished" by Iran's new weapons capabilities if the United States launches another attack, Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) spokesperson Hossein Mohebbi has warned, reports Al Jazeera.
Mohebbi said there would be "significant changes" in Iran's defensive and counteroffensive operations in the event of a new US attack.
"Those changes include a shift in the geography of war, and a shift in weapons and military equipment," he told local media, according to Al Jazeera. "We will bring new weapons with new capabilities into the battlefield, and the world will be astonished."
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He added that Iran's targets would not necessarily remain the same as those struck previously.
"Our targets are also no longer necessarily the same [as the] previous targets. We have new targets that have not yet been struck," he said.
IRGC claims US suffered defeat
Mohebbi also claimed that the United States had been defeated in the war, describing it as a "historic and humiliating defeat".
"The United States has been defeated in this war, and its defeat is also a historic and humiliating defeat, but it does not have the courage to admit and accept this defeat," he said, according to Al Jazeera.
He cited the continued closure of the Strait of Hormuz as one indication of what he described as the US defeat. Iran closed the strategic waterway in response to the joint US-Israeli war, according to Al Jazeera.
Mohebbi said the US had deployed all its capabilities but "could not" reopen the waterway.
He also claimed that US military bases across the region had become a liability, saying investments intended to provide security had instead been turned "into the opposite of security" after the bases came under Iranian attacks.
Mohebbi further claimed that Iranian missiles had struck US intelligence centres around the Gulf and in northern Iraq, saying the attacks demonstrated that the facilities were within Iran's reach and represented "a major intelligence defeat" for Washington.
Qatar seeks to revive Iran-US talks
Meanwhile, Qatar is working to revive talks between Iran and the United States, reports Al Jazeera.
Qatar's Foreign Ministry spokesperson Majed al-Ansari told Bloomberg that mediators were shuttling between Tehran and Washington in an effort to restart negotiations.
Several proposals are being exchanged as mediators seek to bridge differences between the two sides, he said.
