Commander of Iran's Basij (volunteer) Force Brigadier General Mohammad Reza Naqdi downplayed the US officials' military threats against Iran, and said Washington which hires drug trafficker and criminals for fighting in the battleground cannot overcome Tehran in any possible war.

"They (the Americans) have said that no option has been taken off the table, and we tell them that the US can utter such words whenever it can recruit a group of fighters ready to sacrifice themselves for the US," Naqdi told reporters in the Southern province of Khuzestan on Tuesday.

Stressing that the US firms hire drug trafficker and criminals for fighting in the battlefield, he said, "A country, which cannot recruit a group of forces who love defending the US, shouldn’t brag like this."

In relevant remarks late 2013, Iranian Defense Minister Brigadier General Hossein Dehqan underlined Armed Forces' readiness for defending the country's territories against any possible attack, stressing that the US and Israel lacked the courage to attack Iran.

“The threats by the US and the Zionist regime (of Israel) against the Islamic Republic of Iran are jokes; do not take them very seriously,” Dehqan told reporters.

Also in the same year, Commander of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) Navy Rear Admiral Ali Fadavi warned that the American statesmen would merely see the return of the US soldiers' corpses and not their warships if Washington dared to attack Iran.

He underlined that Americans had admitted their weakness for confrontation against the IRGC Navy in areas of vessels, mining operations and coast-to-sea missiles and see them as a grave threat and their weak point which cannot be obviated.

Fadavi said that the reason behind the US and its allies' cruel sanctions against Iran was the fact that they were sure about their weakness and failure if they dared to launch a military attack against Tehran.

The IRGC is responsible for the security of the Persian Gulf where the US warships are deployed. In 2008, Major General Yahya Rahim Safavi, former commander of the IRGC and the current military advisor to the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution, declared that the responsibility for defending the Persian Gulf had been handed over to the IRGC.

He warned that the IRGC would seal the strategic Strait of Hormuz in case the US launches any attack on Iran's nuclear installations.

News ID 187653