Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei
Iran says can destroy Israel in week
Ahmadinejad's chief of staff says if Israel attacks, 'Zionists will have no longer than week to live'
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's
chief of staff, Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei, said Wednesday that if Israel attacked Iran it would be destroyed within a week.
Speaking at a political conference of ultra-conservatives in Iran's north, Mashaei said, "If the Zionist regime attacks Iran, the Zionists will have no longer than a week to live."
The semi-official Fars news agency quoted him as saying that the Islamic Republic would destroy Israel "in less than 10 days".
Mashaei, who was also formerly a vice president, added that new sanctions to be imposed on Iran for its nuclear program would only harm Western countries.
The statesman is considered a close affiliate of the Iranian president and has previously caused a stir by saying that Iran was "a friend of the Israeli people". He later retracted this statement and issued a contrary one saying Israel should be destroyed.
On a visit to Saudi Arabia Mashaei claimed that the annihilation of Israel should be a global goal. He told Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir that "the corrupt and criminal Zionist regime is harming not only the Arab and Islamic world, but all of humanity."
