Iran has "achieved 90% of [its] goals in Syria," Secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council Ali Shamkhani, a close ally of Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said on Saturday.
"There will be important developments in promoting deterrence capability of the resistance front in Syria," Shamkhani said when asked about Israel's "possible future attacks" in Syria.
Israel, increasingly concerned that its enemy Iran may establish a long-term military presence in neighboring Syria, says it has carried out over 200 attacks against Iranian targets in Syria the last two years.
Defying Israeli threats that its forces in Syria might be targeted if they do not leave the country, Shamkhani said Iran will continue to provide military advisers to support Syrian President Bashar Assad's forces for as long as necessary.
"Iran is capable of confronting any military threat … [U.S. President Donald] Trump and Israel are well aware of Iran's military might," Shamkhani said. "They know that they cannot enter a war with Iran. That is why they publicly threaten Iran."
Hinting that Iran and its allies would respond more forcefully to Israeli strikes, Shamkhani added: "We have made arrangements to protect our red line in the area of human casualties caused by any act of aggression and invasion. We will soon witness a major upheaval in upgrading the deterrent power of resistance in Syria."
He also said he did not believe Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was seeking a military confrontation with Iranian forces in Syria, in light of upcoming Knesset elections.
"If Netanyahu gets entangled in several fronts simultaneously, he will definitely end his shaky political life in the runup to the elections. I don't think that he [Netanyahu] would be so silly," Shamkhani said.
Meanwhile, Israel's Channel 13 reported Friday that Britain's MI6 intelligence chief Alexander Younger secretly visited Israel last week for talks with his Israeli counterparts about concerns that Iran may be considering breaching the 2015 nuclear deal.
Younger, according to the report, arrived in Israel on Monday and met with the head of Israel's Mossad intelligence agency, Yossi Cohen, and other intelligence officials.
Israel, the report said, has assessed that Iran is "making preparations" within the provisions of the 2015 nuclear deal, and is "getting ready" but has not yet made the political decision to pursue a nuclear bomb.
Shamkhani also said that Iran had many options to neutralize the re-imposition of U.S. sanctions on its oil exports.
"Apart from closing [the] Strait of Hormuz, we have other options to stop oil flow if threatened," he said.
"Iran has plans in place that will neutralize the illegal U.S. sanctions against Iran's oil exports," Shamkhani said. "We have many ways to sell our oil."
The restoration of sanctions is part of a wider effort by Trump to force Iran to further curb its nuclear and missile programs as well as its support for proxy forces in Yemen, Syria, Lebanon and other parts of the Middle East.
Washington had been pushing governments to cut imports of Iranian oil to zero. But, fearing a price spike, it granted waivers to eight Iranian oil buyers when the sanctions on oil imports started last November.
Carrying one-third of the world's seaborne oil every day, the Strait of Hormuz links Middle East crude producers to key markets in Asia Pacific, Europe, North America and beyond.
"There are multiple ways to make that [blockage of Hormuz] happen. We hope we would not be forced to use them," Shamkhani said.
