New era | Khamenei praises the army’s ‘success’ after the attack on Israel

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei praised the country’s armed forces for their “success” in his first public comments since Tehran launched an unprecedented direct attack on Israel last week.

During a meeting with Iranian military commanders on Sunday, Khamenei praised the armed forces for their “success in recent events,” a week after the country’s first-ever direct attack on Israel from its own territory.

“The armed forces showed a good image of their capabilities and power and an admirable image of the Iranian nation,” Khamenei said. “They also proved the rise of the strength of the Iranian nation’s resolve at the international level.”

The comments from Iran’s supreme leader are the first since Iran attacked Israel and since Friday an Israeli attack on a military airbase in the central province of Isfahan.

“The recent achievements of the armed forces have created a sense of splendor about Islamic Iran in the eyes of the world,” Khamenei said in quotes on his official X account.

Friday’s attack, which Khamenei did not mention, was a supposed response to Iran’s unprecedented drone and missile attack on Israel, which itself was a retaliation for an airstrike on the Iranian consular building in Damascus.

That attack, largely blamed on Israel, leveled the consular annex of the Iranian embassy and killed seven members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, including two generals.

Israel said it intercepted 99 percent of the more than 300 drones and missiles fired at the country with help from the United States and other allies, and that those that did get through caused only minor damage.

In his speech on his country’s attack on Israel, Khamenei said that “the issue of the number of rockets fired or the rockets hitting the target” was “secondary.”

“The main problem is the rise of the willpower of the Iranian nation and its armed forces in the international arena,” he said, according to his official website.

Iran and Israel appeared to have pulled back from the brink of a wider conflict after Friday’s attack, which Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian appeared to downplay to US media on Saturday.

Speaking to NBC News, he dismissed it as “no attack” and said the weapons used were “at the level of toys,” adding that if there was “no new adventure” from Israel, Iran “will have no response ‘.

The comments helped calm fears of an all-out war between the arch-enemies, which could spread into a broader regional conflict.