Iran’s Revolutionary Guards are not leading the country into a war with the US, but will not hesitate to wage one if forced to, the commander of the elite force said amid a row over US embassy in Baghdad.

The US blames Tehran for orchestrating mass protests at the US embassy in the Iraqi capital, which involved a partial takeover of the massive compound. The protest was led by Kataib Hezbollah, an Iran-backed militia group, in response to US airstrikes on its forces. Speaking on Thursday, Brigadier General Hossein Salami said the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) was not moving towards an open war with the US, but would not shy away from one.

“We are not leading the country to war, but we are not afraid of any war and we tell America to speak correctly with the Iranian nation. We have the power to break them several times over and are not worried,” the commander of the IRGC said, as cited by the Tasnim news agency.

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Kataib Hezbollah ordered its supporters to pull back from Baghdad’s Green Zone on Wednesday, claiming a ‘psychological victory’ over Washington. The angry crowds, which acted under the Iraqi government’s non-involvement stance, didn’t break into the main embassy buildings during the two-day standoff.

The US response to the security crisis was to deploy additional troops to Iraq.

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