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A senior Iranian official said Tuesday the Islamic Republic will respond "at the appropriate time and place" to a purported Israeli missile strike that killed several Iranian troops in Syria.
The comments by Alaeddin Boroujerdi, the chairman of the Iranian parliament’s national security committee, were the first to directly address the attack Sunday night on outposts in northern Syria, widely believed to have been carried out by Israel.
A war monitoring group and an Iranian news agency said the strikes killed more than a dozen pro-government fighters, many of them Iranians.
"Aggression of the Zionist entity against the presence of our military advisers in Syria gives us the right to respond at the appropriate place and time," Boroujerdi said at a press conference in the Syrian capital.
In a steadfast response to the threat, Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman said "threats from Iran come week after week," and should they act on them, Israel will respond appropriately.
Lieberman than lambasted countries unwilling to see Iran for the threat it is, saying they prefer to "bury their heads in the sand" and ignore that "Iran oppresses freedom of expression and minorities" and receives economic benefits based on the false grounds that it does not aspire to achieve nuclear weapons.
"Israel cannot ignore Iran's threat," he concluded.
The Sunday night attack in Syria sent tensions soaring between Israel and Iran. Israel is believed to be behind several strikes on Iran-linked positions in Syria in the last year, although Israeli authorities typically do not confirm or deny such attacks. Iran is a key ally of Syrian President Bashar Assad and has sent thousands of fighters to Syria to support his forces in the seven-year civil war.
Boroujerdi met with Assad in Damascus on Monday, and hailed what he called "important victories" in their shared battle.
On Monday, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said the time when Iran’s enemies can "hit and run" is over.