Pordestan: We are capable of carrying out missions worldwide

Ahmadreza Pordestan, the commander of the Iranian Army's Ground Forces, stated on Sunday, May 23, during a new military exercise named 'Bait al-Maqdis 28', that 'in this exercise, various asymmetric warfare tactics have been practiced, and the soldiers of the Army will demonstrate that not only in Iran but wherever necessary and as ordered by the Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces, they are capable of carrying out missions worldwide.' According to the Fars and IRNA news agencies, the first and second phases of the military exercise took place on Sunday in the desert region of Maranjab, Aran and Bidgol, near Kashan, and the third phase will continue on Monday in Nasrabad, Isfahan. During the military drills on Sunday, four Fajr rockets, two Nasr missiles, and several 122mm rockets were fired to hit 'pre-determined targets'. The Mehr news agency also published more details about the types of missiles and rockets fired, stating that the Nasr missiles were of types N10 and N6, and the fired rockets included four Fajr 5 and 15 Katyusha rockets along with four N45 type cannons. Ahmadreza Pordestan, during the exercise on Sunday, implicitly asked neighboring countries and the region not to worry about these military drills; he stated, 'The message of the exercise for the countries of the region is peace and friendship.' Ali Moharabi, the deputy operations commander of the Ground Forces, described the rocket and missile launches as 'successful', stating that in this exercise 'the latest defensive and missile tactics are practiced with the newest weapons in a realistic manner.' He added that the 65th Airborne Special Forces Brigade also conducted its 'special operations' in the second phase of this exercise, but he did not provide details about these 'special operations'. The 65th Airborne Brigade is a special forces unit that has recently been mentioned in connection with the deployment of some of its commandos to Syria. Ataollah Salehi, the commander of the Iranian Army, emphasized last month that the army has not been tasked with sending 'advisory forces' to Syria, and the forces of the 65th Brigade have been sent to Syria within the framework of the actions of the institutions responsible for this matter. However, in the early days of the media coverage of the presence of the 65th Brigade forces in Syria, the bodies of several of its killed members were also returned to Iran. Ahmadreza Pordestan had stated on April 12 that 'we are facing a new environment of proxy wars in Syria' and 'we have a field duty to identify these threats, and therefore we have sent some personnel from the Ground Forces to understand this environment.' In this context, two other commandos of the Iranian Army were killed in the Syrian civil war, the fifth commando of the Iranian Army was killed in the clashes in Syria, four commandos of the Iranian Army were killed in Syria, and the 'first commando' of the Iranian Army was killed in Syria.