IRGC Says New Targets Are On Agenda

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) - The spokesman for Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said on Sunday that identifying new targets and planning operations in new geographical areas are now on the force’s agenda, and that Iran has defined a vast operational theater to inflict damage on its enemies. Brigadier General Hossein Mohebbi made the remarks in reference to the directives Supreme Leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei gave senior military commanders in a recent meeting.

Mohebbi said the Supreme Leader’s directives have “opened a new chapter in the war,” and that the armed forces are now better prepared than before to deliver a decisive response to the enemy. Referring to Khamenei’s emphasis that there would be no geographical restrictions in a war with the US, he said a “vast field” has been defined to strike the enemy and achieve complete deterrence. He did not name any target or area.

Khamenei’s directive was reported on Saturday. In a statement on the meeting, he told commanders that any level or type of threat must be met with an immediate, impactful and geographically unrestricted response, Reuters reported. According to the Iranian States Media, he added that if Iran’s enemies resume military or terrorist attacks, it will be the Iranian armed forces and nation that determine when and under what conditions those attacks end.

The language builds on earlier warnings. Mohebbi, who became IRGC spokesman in April after his predecessor was killed in an airstrike, said in an interview with Al-Alam on September 21 that any renewed attack would change the geography of the war and that Iran had new targets it has not yet struck.

He said Iran would use new weapons that would “astonish the world,” Xinhua and Anadolu reported. Last Saturday he warned that Iran would answer the smallest enemy mistake with a response several times greater. Khamenei said in his first message on March 12 that Iran was looking at opening new fronts “where the enemy has little experience and is highly vulnerable,” Axios reported. An unnamed senior Iranian security official told CNN on Friday that regional AI infrastructure is now on Iran’s retaliation list and that any new war would be a long “war of surprises.”

The statements come as the US weighs new strikes. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Saturday that President Donald Trump has not made a decision, and Trump said the US still needs to deal with one or two Iranian sites and can do so in 10 minutes. CNN reported last Monday that US forces could launch major operations within 96 hours of an order, and Gulf officials say Washington has told them strikes could come as early as November 4, the day after the midterm elections.

Whether Tehran’s new-targets language is a deterrent message or a specific operational plan will become clearer if the US decides to strike.