Report: Iranian General Calls for Wiping Israel ‘Off the Map’

Following Iranian scientist Dariush Rezaiinejad's assassination, Pajamas Media's Reza Kahlili is reporting that Basij Brigadier General Mohammad-Reza Naghdi wants Israel destroyed. According to Kahlili, Naghdi has claimed that protecting Iran's security is dependent upon wiping the "Zionist region" "off the map." In response to Rezaiinejad's death, Naghdi allegedly said:

"The main plot for this criminal act was conceived by the American government, and since it is scared of the reaction by the Muslim world due to the uprisings in the region, it had the Zionist regime commit the heinous act...we have no option but to have the Zionist regime wiped off the map."

Naghdi was born in Iraq and he was a member of the Iranian Quds Force before being appointed to his leadership post in Basij back in 2009. The Basij is a volunteer military body that is generally comprised of young Iranians who receive official benefits for enlisting.

This isn't the first time the radical general has been accused of advocating violence. Back in November 2010, The Blaze reported on the death of two other Iranian scientists. It was no secret then that the Iranian government placed blame on Israel for the deaths. It was then that Naghdi said that American generals would be targeted and killed in response to the scientists' murders. Fox News has more:

In a speech published in Farsi at an Iranian website linked to the Revolutionary Guard, Brig. Gen. Mohammad Reza Naghdi was quoted as saying that “the filthy Americans and the Zionists should not think that with killing our scientists, they can divert our nation from its path of Jihad and scare us.”

He continued with a specific threat: “We will mark the hanging sites of the American and Zionist generals and we will identify which hanging was in retaliation for the blood of our great martyr Shahriari.”

The new allegations -- that Naghdi wants Israel wiped off the map -- emerged after Rezaiinejad was gunned down outside of his Tehran home this past weekend.

Kahlili reports that mixed messages about the death have been coming from Iran's state-run media outlets. He writes that the media first reported that the man was a physicist working on the nation's nuclear program. Then, they purportedly changed course and began saying that he was merely a student studying for a master's degree in electricity. NPR reports:

Iran says a scientist killed in Tehran over the weekend was not connected with the country's nuclear program, but the daylight killing and recent announcements by Tehran of nuclear advances have renewed scrutiny of the country's nuclear effort.

Iranian media said 35-year-old Darioush Rezai-Nejad was a promising graduate student. Officials speculated that his assailants — gunmen on motorbikes — may have confused him with a nuclear scientist with a similar name.

While the U.S. has denied any involvement in the incident, Iran's Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani has called the killing a "U.S.-Zionist terrorist act." Tehran Governor General Morteza Tamaddon mirrored this sentiment, saying the following at Rezaiinejad’s funeral:

"Undoubtedly, this was an American-Israeli project against our intellectuals and thinkers with the aim of discouraging the Iranian nation from continuing the path it has taken."

Although CBN is also carrying this story, The Blaze is still working to substantiate the statement about Israel's demise in the original translation. Naghdi's past comments, though, certainly indicate that this is a statement that jives with the general's political ideologies. If true, this certainly isn't the first time an Iranian official advocated wiping Israel off of the map.