By Ynet News

Amid economic protests in Tehran, supreme leader says West pressuring Iran because it is 'not bowing to the hegemonic system.' Top commander: We can destroy Israel in 24 hours .

The�Iranian�regime "has not bowed and will never surrender to pressure, and this has made the enemy furious," Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali�Khamenei�said Wednesday amid�clashesbetween riot police and demonstrators in Tehran over the collapse of the country's currency, which has lost a third of its value against the dollar in a week.

According to the Fars news agency, Ayatollah Khamenei told a group of "young Iranian elites" in the capital that "during the last 33 years, Iran has been faced with a wide range of political, security, military and economic pressure and sanctions, but the Iranian nation has not only neutralized these pressures through resistance, it has grown more powerful through resistance."

The Iranian website Press TV quoted the supreme leader as saying that "the Iranian nation has never bowed to pressure and never will, and this is the cause of enemy�s fury."

He told the "young gifted talents" that "the cause of all these pressures is the Iranian nation�s independent position and not bowing to the hegemonic system."

Meanwhile, Ayotollah Khamenei�s representative in the elite unit of the Revolutionary Guards said it would take Iran 24 hours to destroy�Israel�should it launch an attack on the Islamic Republic's�nuclear installations.

"If a war with Israel does happen, it wouldn�t be a long one, and it would benefit the entire Muslim world,� Hojjat al-Eslam Ali Shirazi said in an interview with Iran's Jahan News.

During Wednesday's clashes near Tehran's main bazaar, police fired tear gas to disperse demonstrators and merchants angered by the plunge in the value of the Iranian rial. The protesters yelled out slogans against President�Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, saying his economic policies had fuelled the economic crisis.

Protesters further criticized the Iranian government for aiding the Syrian regime at the expense of dealing with the economic situation in Iran.

The rial has been plunging to record lows against the US dollar almost daily as Western economic sanctions imposed over Iran's disputed nuclear program have slashed Iran's export earnings from oil, undermining the central bank's ability to support the currency.

 

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