Shafaq News- Tehran

Iran is maintaining armed readiness across the country and will not return to the conditions its enemies seek to restore, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei said on Monday, citing public mobilization and the Strait of Hormuz.

In a message marking Sacred Defense Week* and the second anniversary of the death of former Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah, Khamenei said more than 30 million Iranians had declared their willingness to sacrifice themselves for their country. When participants were later asked to renew their declarations of readiness for organizational purposes, more than 500,000 responded within the first 100 minutes, he added.

أعلن، بصفتي خادمًا لشعب إيران العزيز، أنّ تلك الأيام الماضية التي يتمنى عدونا إعادتنا إليها قد ولّت، ولن تتكرر أبدًا.

— آية الله السيد مجتبى الحسيني الخامنئي (@MKhamenei_ar) September 28, 2026

He also included the Strait of Hormuz among the “rightful positions” that Iranian society is “determined to uphold.”

Hostile forces that once operated in waters south of Iran no longer advanced beyond the Arabian Sea because of the “painful strikes” by Iranian fighters and the “guardians of the Strait of Hormuz,” the Supreme Leader said, adding that the Arabian Sea would eventually be free of them as well.

Read more: Iran war spreads to Iraq and Red Sea as regional risks mount

Khamenei compared Iran’s current circumstances with the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war –the “first imposed war”– arguing that Iran had emerged stronger from that conflict and from the two more recent “imposed wars,” referring to the June 2025 and February 2026 US-Israeli wars on the country.

* An annual Iranian commemoration of the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq War