Iran army chief says forces ready to respond decisively to any attack

Iran does not seek to start a regional war but would hold the United States responsible for the consequences of any such conflict, the country’s top military commander said on Sunday.

Major General Abdolrahim Mousavi, chief of staff of Iran’s armed forces, said Iran remained fully prepared for a prolonged conflict with the United States while also remaining open to what he described as logical and unconditional avenues for diplomacy.

“We are not interested in starting a regional war,” Mousavi said at a ceremony marking the anniversary of Iran’s air force. “But a regional war would push the region’s progress and development back by years, and its consequences would be the responsibility of the war instigators, meaning the United States and the Zionist regime.”

Mousavi said Iran possessed both the military capability and readiness for a long-term confrontation with Washington, while stressing that Tehran preferred to avoid escalation.

Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar said on Sunday that Iran’s long-range ballistic missile program poses a threat not only to Israel but also to other countries in the Middle East and Europe.

"The long-range ballistic missiles that the regime seeks to produce in enormous quantities endanger Israel, but not only Israel. The Iranian regime has already used missiles against other countries in the Middle East as well. European countries are also threatened by the range of these missiles," Sa’ar said during a meeting with Paraguay’s Foreign Minister Ruben Ramirez Lezcano.

The Israeli foreign minister said separately on X that Iran also “spreads terror beyond the Middle East, including to Latin America,” further commending Paraguay's designation of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terror organization.

An Iranian lawmaker said Tehran warned US President Donald Trump that any strike on Iran would trigger retaliation causing thousands of American casualties.

Mahmoud Nabavian, a member of parliament’s national security committee, said Trump sent a message via an unnamed country before negotiations asking to hit “two points” in Iran.

“We told them it was over. If you make the slightest mistake, we will take three to four thousand casualties from you,” Nabavian was quoted as saying.

He added that lawmakers had told Iran’s foreign minister to inform regional counterparts that any company or base “bearing the name of the United States” would be targeted.

Israeli Energy Minister Eli Cohen said on Sunday that regime change in Iran would benefit all Muslim countries in the region and dismissed the value of any agreement reached with Iran’s current rulers.

"Regime change in Tehran is in the interest of all the Muslim countries surrounding Iran. Israel is a sovereign state and it must act according to its security interests. An agreement with the current regime has no value - only regime change in Iran," he said in an interview with Ynet Studio.

Cohen added that Israel would act militarily if it faces a concrete threat from Iran, even if an agreement was reached with Tehran.

An Iranian teachers’ union said it had documented the deaths of 200 school students during a crackdown on protesters in Iran and published a list of their names.

“The society must know that as long as the death of a child has no cost, no political order is legitimate,” said the Coordination Council of Iranian Teachers’ Trade Associations, a national umbrella union linking teachers’ trade associations across multiple provinces.

The council said the 200 names were meant as a constant reminder of “a simple and horrifying reality: a system that kills the future,” calling for accountability.

Iranian authorities have not released an official list of minors killed during protest crackdowns.