Iran Blames Israel for Assassination of Lebanese Intelligence Chief

(FNA)- Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi once again accused Israel of masterminding and staging the last month terrorist blast in Beirut, which killed the intelligence chief of Lebanon's Internal Security Forces, General Wissam al-Hassan, and nine others.

Salehi rejected the allegations that Syria had been behind the blast, and reminded that Israel was the "primary beneficiary" of Hassan's assassination.

"What will Syria gain by killing him?" Salehi said in an interview in the Kuwaiti al-Rai newspaper and the Qatari al-Watan newspaper.

Salehi also reminded that al-Hassan uncovered 30 Israeli spy networks in Lebanon, "which indicates that Israel is solely the number one beneficiary of his assassination".

He noted that although his country "maintains special ties with Hezbollah and AMAL, it also has special relations with all of the parties in Lebanon."

"We might have different points of view over some issues, however, we don't meddle in the Lebanese affairs," Salehi said.

In the interview, Salehi was also asked about Hezbollah's Iranian-made drone that penetrated Israel on October 6. He said that "it's not a secret that Iran has obtained pilotless aircraft that are more sophisticated than this one."

"We are one of the few countries that has this technology and our drones can reach a range up to 2,000 kilometers," Salehi said.

Last month, a Hezbollah pilotless drone penetrated Israel's much boasted air defense systems and was noticed and shot down only a few kilometers away from the Zionist regime's main atomic center in the Negev desert.

Hezbollah claimed responsibility for the aircraft, saying its parts had been manufactured in Iran and assembled in Lebanon.

Iranian Defense Minister Brigadier General Ahmad Vahidi said last week that the drone was not Iran's most advanced unmanned aerial vehicle.

"The Islamic Republic of Iran currently has unmanned aerial vehicles with a technology by far more advanced than (that of) the drone recently flown by the resistance movement of Hezbollah in the Zionist regime's airspace," Vahidi said.

The technology of Hezbollah's Iranian-made drone was not definitely "Iran's latest technology," he said.