Massive crowds mark 40th anniversary of Iran revolution

Iran's president insisted "enemy" plots against the country would fail as vast crowds marked 40 years since the Islamic revolution at a time of heightened tensions with the United States.

"The presence of people today on the streets all over Islamic Iran... means that the enemy will never reach its evil objectives," a defiant President Hassan Rouhani told those thronging Tehran's Azadi (Freedom) Square Monday, decrying a "conspiracy" involving Washington.

Chador-clad women, militia members in camouflage fatigues and ordinary citizens marched through the capital in freezing rain to commemorate the day in February 1979 that Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini ended millennia of royal rule.

The routes leading up to the square were packed with people as loudspeakers blared revolutionary anthems and slogans.

Life-size replicas of Iranian-made cruise and ballistic missiles stood in a statement of defiance after the US last year reimposed sanctions following its withdrawal from a deal on Tehran's nuclear programme.

Rouhani lambasted calls from the United States and Europe for a fresh agreement to curb Iran's missile programme.

"We have not, and will not, request permission from anyone for increasing our defensive power and for building all kinds of... missiles," he told the crowd.

Speaking from a flower-festooned stage overlooking the square, the president warned that Iran was now far stronger than when it faced off against Saddam Hussein's Iraq in a devastating 1980-1988 war.

"Today the whole world should know that the Islamic Republic of Iran is considerably more powerful than the days of the war," Rouhani said.

Seemingly reaching out to his political critics within the country, the president added: "The more we allow different ideas, beliefs and (political) factions the stronger our system will be."
"If this regime makes the awful mistake of trying to destroy Tel Aviv and Haifa, it will not succeed," he said. "However, this would be the last anniversary of the revolution that they celebrate."