TEHRAN: Any US or Israeli attack against Iran will be returned by a force 100 times stronger, the head of the Revolutionary Guards said yesterday, as pressure mounts on Tehran’s atomic work and its support for Hezbollah.

"There is no doubt that if these criminals attempt any operation or vicious assault, they will receive blows 100 times harder," said Yahya Rahim-Safavi, commander-in-chief of the Revolutionary Guards.

"They will not last against the raging sea of the Iranian people and the power of Islamic Iran," he was quoted as saying by the official Irna news agency.

Washington has declined to rule out military strikes as a solution to the nuclear dispute.

lIran yesterday dismissed a draft UN Security Council resolution calling for an end to fighting between Hezbollah and Israel as a "political operation against Lebanon".

The draft, sponsored by permanent council members France and the US, is "one-sided and another operation against Lebanon," Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki told a conference.

Iran is the main supporter of Lebanon’s Hezbollah.

Addressing a seminar on ‘Global and Regional Outcomes of the Zionist Regime’s Aggression’, Mottaki also criticised the French-US text for depicting Lebanon as the initiator of the crisis.

Referring to Israel, he said: "As long as this regime exists with world powers’ support ... the region and the world will not see peace". - Agencies