In a statement on the occasion of the anniversary of passing away of Imam Khomeini, Major General Mohammad Hossein Baqeri said the Iranian Armed Forces are fully prepared to counter threats and respond to hostile measures.

The Iranian military forces are vigorously protecting the country’s independence, territorial integrity, and national security, the commander said.

Under the guidance of Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei, the Armed Forces are sticking to a strategy to “boost deterrent power, maximize defense capacities, and update the offense tactics proportional to potential threats posed by the front of enemies,” the senior commander added.

Major General Baqeri further gave an assurance that Iran’s military forces remain vigilant at all times to deal with the modern seditions and plots against the Islamic Republic. “As we have announced several times, we will decisively and immediately give a retaliatory response to any miscalculation from them (enemies) at any place and any time.”

He also highlighted the failure of the “front of hegemony, Zionism, and the filthy regional reactionary” regimes to harm the Islamic Republic and the Revolution during three decades after passing away of Imam Khomeini, saying their full-blown media wars, cultural onslaught, economic threats and wars, military threats, and psychological warfare against Iran have all ended in failure.

The top commander then pointed to Iran’s strategy of “active and progressive resistance, not stationary and passive resistance”, saying such an approach has led to the formation of resistance groups in the Islamic world and the victory of resistance front in West Asia.

Major General Baqeri went on to say that the active resistance has defeated the Daesh (ISIL or ISIS) terrorist group and Takfiri terrorism, thwarted the evil plots of the “Greater Middle East” and the “Deal of the Century”, and has turned the US withdrawal from the region into a regional and international demand.

Speaking to the Tasnim News Agency, Brigadier General Heidari pointed to the latest relief operations in the province and said the army and other military forces are helping the quake-hit people and trying their hardest to ensure the security of the province.

Since the early hours of the tragic incident, the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) and the Army have rushed to the quake-hit areas to rescue the victims, he noted.

The commander further said that the rapid-response brigades, rescue units and the medical teams of the army have also been sent to the areas.

At least 372 people have been killed and 6,000 injured in the quake measuring 7.3 on the Richter scale, whose epicenter was near Halabjah, southeast of Iraq’s Sulaymaniyah.

The province of Kermanshah declared three days of mourning, as rescue teams from across the country have hurried to dig out survivors stuck under the rubble and save the wounded.

In a telephone conversation with President Hassan Rouhani after the natural disaster, Governor of Kermanshah Hooshang Bazvand expected that the death toll would rise.

Meanwhile, the provincial police chief, General Manouchehr Amanollahi assured people that full security prevails across the quake-hit areas, saying all roads are open and the traffic flow is normal.

One of the cities hit hardest by the massive quake is Sarpol-e Zahab. Witnesses say they were appalled to see the city skyline on Monday morning, saying half of the buildings seem to have been destroyed.

After a terrible night and ongoing blackout, Sarpol-e Zahab is receiving more rescue teams and sniffer dogs searching for survivors buried under the rubble.

Officials say access to rural areas is still limited.

Field hospitals have been set up in the quake-hit areas.

In a message on Monday morning, Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei ordered all Iranian officials to rush to help a large number of people affected by the earthquake, and particularly rescue those trapped under rubble in the very first hours after the disaster.

In a Sunday address to the graduation ceremony of Police cadets in Tehran, Ayatollah Khamenei took a swipe at US officials for their impertinent attitude toward the JCPOA, the nuclear agreement between Iran and the Group 5+1 (Russia, China, the US, Britain, France and Germany).

The US has exhibited various evil and malicious behaviors in connection with the JCPOA, the Leader deplored, saying such a conduct affirms the late founder of the Islamic Republic Imam Khomeini’s notion that the US is “the great Satan.”

“The United States of America’s regime is truly the most vicious of devils,” Ayatollah Khamenei added.

While Iranian officials decided to hold nuclear negotiations and even retreat from part of the country’s rights to have the sanctions lifted, the US is behaving in a cruel, bullying and forceful manner despite all of those negotiations, commitments, Imam Khamenei said.

As regards the best approach to deal with the enemy’s hostile moves, Ayatollah Khamenei said Iranian authorities should prove it to the “corrupt leaders of the US regime” that they rely on the Iranian nation who would never bow to force.

“The Iranian nation is standing firmly, and any wrong move by the hegemonic system concerning the JCPOA would receive the Islamic Republic’s reaction,” the Leader stressed.

Iran and the Group 5+1 reached the 159-page nuclear agreement in July 2015 and started to implement it in January 2016.

Since the historic deal was signed in Vienna, the IAEA has repeatedly confirmed the Islamic Republic’s compliance with its commitments under the JCPOA, but some other parties, especially the US, have failed to live up to their undertakings.

The US has even imposed many fresh sanctions against Iran, in flagrant defiance of the JCPOA.