AFP, TEHRAN: Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has said the military exercises held last month by the Revolutionary Guards Corps were a success, state television reported Sunday.
“The success of Ashura-5 manoeuvres obliges me to thank you and other senior commanders,” the all-powerful leader was quoted as writing to Guards commander Rahim Safavi.
“Abilities in planning, command and logistics could be perfectly seen in this big collective operation,” Khamenei wrote of the exercises, held in the northwest of the country.
The week-long exercises kicked off on September 12, and were reportedly aimed at testing out new equipment and maintaining the Revolutionary Guards' “spirit of Jihad (holy war) and defence” and its status of being the “biggest deterrent power in the region”.
The Revolutionary Guards, one of Iran's most powerful institutions, were set up in the wake of the 1979 Islamic revolution and have a separate command structure to the regular armed forces.
