TEHRAN – A top military official said on Sunday that Iran is able to immediately respond to any threat.

“During the imposed war, when we were attacked by a missile, we went to shelters, but today we have reached a level of deterrence where we are able to respond decisively and promptly to any threat against the Islamic Republic of Iran,” said Brigadier General Saeed Shabanian, the deputy coordinator at the Iranian Defense Ministry.

The top general was referring to the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s – also known as the Sacred Defense- during which the Baathist regime of Saddam Hussein showered Iranian cities with missiles while Iran was unable to respond because it didn’t have long-range missiles.

Shabanian said, “We went to war with the Baathist regime of Iraq while we were not enjoying a desirable level of deterrence in terms of military capabilities.”

According to the general, during the war, Iran used the weapons that were imported by the Shah regime, but the countries selling the weapons to Iran were backing Saddam Hussein, the former dictator of Iraq, and that Iran faced difficulties acquiring spare parts.

However, Shabanian said, Iran put the production of defense equipment on the agenda and achieved very significant successes and advances in this field.

Iran is now domestically producing a variety of weapons, he added.

“Today, almost all of our defense products are indigenous and made by our own specialists, and there is no need for foreigners in these areas,” Shabanian stated.

He also expressed the armed forces’ readiness to help industrial sectors in terms of producing spare parts in light of U.S. sanctions on Iran, which he described as an “all-out economic war.”

Shabanian added, “We are ready to transfer our experiences and technology to industry sectors, and this issue has been repeatedly reflected in the media by the minister of defense.”

In March, Shabanian said the Iranian Defense Ministry has begun producing disinfectants to help the country get through the coronavirus pandemic.

“There is the capacity to produce 100,000 liters of disinfectants and more than 30,000 N95 face masks on a daily basis and up to now, more than 1 million liters of disinfectants and 280,000 face masks have been produced and handed over to the Ministry of Health and the work is going on,” the deputy defense minister was quoted as saying by Mehr news agency in March.

Pointing to the produced coronavirus test kits in the Defense Ministry, he said that these kits have passed all the required protocols and are being used in a number of hospitals across the country.

According to Mehr, the Defense Ministry had announced mass production of coronavirus test kits, face masks, disinfectants, ambulances, and hospital beds to help the country battle the outbreak.

Shabanian also said that the ministry produced thousands of car parts after foreign firms withdrew from Iran due to U.S. sanctions on the country.

“During the all-out economic war, at the request of public and private industry sectors and following the non-fulfillment of the foreign companies’ commitment to supply parts to the country's industrial sectors, we produced and delivered more than thousands of parts in the field of automobiles to automakers,” the deputy defense minister noted.

SM/PA