As U.S. and Iraqi officials released new evidence this week of Iran's training, funding, and arming of terrorists in Iraq, Iranian Cleric Ahmad Khatami said in a Friday prayer broadcast on state radio "If maniacs in Washington or Tel Aviv seek to take (military) action, the Iranian nation will slap them so hard they will not get off the floor."

The alarming rhetoric comes amidst new reports that Iran has been providing Hezbollah facilities to train Iraqi militants. U.S. military spokesman Colonel Donald Bacon told journalists, "We have multiple detainees who state Lebanese Hezbollah are providing training to Iraqis in Iranian (Qods force) training camps near Tehran." The Qods are a wing of the Islamic Republic's Revolutionary Guards and are a source of funding and training for Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr's Mehdi Army militia.

Also, evidence presented last week by Iraqi officials to the Iranians in Tehran of weapons smuggling and meddling in Iraq, was met with strong denials. According to Haidar al-Abadi, a member of the ruling United Iraqi Alliance, "The Iranian side was hurt" by the allegations. The evidence included Iranian missiles found in Basra .

Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei addressed a rally in the Iranian city of Shiraz, and vowed not to bow to the West. "The enemies of the Islamic system imagine that by hatching an economic plot and threatening with sanctions they can undermine the perseverance of Iranians....But the great nation of Iran will once again foil this plot just like it has overcame economic sanctions over the last thirty years." He continued, "Have you not tested the Iranian nation? We will continue on our path with power and will not allow the oppressors to deny this nation's right."