Iran: Any attack on our nuclear facility will be beginning of war

Tehran will consider any military action against its nuclear facilities as the beginning of a war, Iran's official news agency IRNA reported Friday.

The commander of Iran's Revolutionary Guards, General Mohammad Ali Jafari, was quoted as saying that any country that attacks Iran would regret doing so.

According to the report, Jafari has warned that such a step would be the beginning of war. However, the general was also quoted as saying that he considers it unlikely Iran's adversaries would attempt an attack.

In a newspaper interview last week, Jafari warned that if attacked, Iran would barrage Israel with missiles and choke off the strategic Strait of Hormuz, a narrow outlet for oil tankers leaving the Persian Gulf.

Israel carried out a large military exercise last month, seen throughout the media as a rehearsal for an attack on Iran.

U.S. admiral: Iran likely to attack Israel

Meanwhile, a U.S. admiral warned earlier this week that Iran is likely to launch ballistic missiles against Israel and the United States and the NATO alliance should prepare for it.

In recent years, the missile boats of the Sixth Fleet practiced intercepting Shahab-3 missiles from Iran aimed at Israel, along with the Arrow batteries of the air force and U.S. and Israeli batteries of Patriot missiles.

In an article entitled "Maritime Strategy in an Age of Blood and Belief" in the U.S. Naval Institute's monthly Proceedings, fleet commander Admiral James Winnefeld describes the possibility of an offensive barrage of ballistic missiles fired from Iran against Israel as being "by far the most likely employment of ballistic missiles in the world today, and it demands our immediate attention in the event of a need for a U.S. or NATO response."

He says Iran is an "unpredictable adversary," which could be provoked into action "by an isolated, and perhaps seemingly unimportant, event."