A senior Israeli official said on Thursday that Iran is supporting mass-murder in Syria, and trying to control the Mideast region, even though it does not yet have nuclear capabilities.
The official was responding to remarks by Iran's parliamentary speaker Ali Larijani on Wednesday, who warned that a western military intervention in war-torn Syria to depose President Bashar Assad will result in a regional upheaval that would undoubtedly engulf Israel.
"Iran is trying to manage the Middle East at the same time as it is supporting mass murder in Syria, all this is happening without nuclear capability. Imagine what would happen if the Iranian's would have nuclear weapons," the official said.
On Wednesday, in what seemed to be an explicit threat against the consequences that military action could have on Israel, Larijani said that violence from Syria "will spread into Palestine and the ashes of such flame will definitely bury the Zionist regime."
Larijani spoke following a massacre in the Syrian city of Houla, which garnered severe criticism in the West.
Larijani's comments came after Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad condemned civilian deaths in the Syrian crisis, adding, however that the West and certain Arab countries were interfering in Syria and sending weapons to help bring down the government.
"We cannot trust these people because their objective is to bring down Assad," he said.
Russia said on Wednesday that the UN Security Council should not consider new measures to resolve the crisis in Syria at this point and signaled it would block any effort to authorize military intervention, the Interfax news agency reported.
The U.S. ambassador to the UN Susan Rice, said on on Wednesday that it is unlikely that the Assad regime will halt the violence and follow the UN-led peace plan to resolve the crisis in the country. She told MSNBC that Iran is actively supporting Syria, and added that the conflict in Syria is of "a different character with much broader regional implications should it continue to spin out of control.”
The warnings came after the French President Francois Hollande said military intervention was not ruled out provided it was backed by the Security Council, and Germany said it would push for "new engagement" by the council on Syria.

By Barak Ravid

Haaretz.com