TEHRAN – Reacting to the U.S. missile attacks on an airfield in Syria, Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei said on Sunday that Iran won’t “retreat from the field”. 

“The Islamic Republic of Iran has shown that it does not retreat from the field by such irrelevant remarks and wrong deeds,” the Leader was quoted as saying in a meeting with senior military figures in Tehran on Sunday. 

In making the comments, Ayatollah Khamenei was rejecting speculation that the missile attacks on the Shayrat airfield could possibly mean any other targets could come under such surprise strikes in the future. 

The U.S. on Friday fired dozens of cruise missiles at the Shayrat air base from which it said a deadly chemical weapons attack was launched on April 4, the first direct military action Washington has taken against the Syrian government forces in the six-year-old conflict.

Right on the heels of the strike, the Israeli regime’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu expressed hope that it conveyed a “message of resolve” to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and Tehran, which backs Syria in its fight against terrorist groups. 

The Supreme Leader also underscored that Washington is “fully capable of” committing virtually any sort of crime and invasion, calling the recent attacks on the Syrian territory “a strategic mistake”. 

“The hypocritical European governments which claim Syria has used chemical weapons, gave Saddam (Hussein) loads of chemical weapons so that he attacks our fronts and the Sardasht and Halabche regions during the (eight-year) imposed war,” he highlighted, reminding the West of the use of chemical weapons by Iraq in 1988, during the waning days of Saddam Hussein’s war against Iran. 

Also, the Leader said: “What the Americans did was a strategic mistake and error and they are repeating the [same] mistakes as their predecessors. 
“The previous U.S. authorities created Daesh (ISIS) or assisted it and its incumbent authorities are strengthening Daesh or other similar groups.” 
AK/PA