Iran warns 'we have dug mass graves for your soldiers' in response to U.S. attack threat

The announcement appears to be a show of bravado after the chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, said last week that the U.S. military had a contingency plan to attack Iran - although he admitted a military strike was probably a bad idea.

The U.S. and some of its allies accuse Iran of using its civilian nuclear development as a cover to build nuclear weapons. Iran has denied the charges, saying its nuclear development is geared merely toward generating electricity, not weapons.

The deputy commander of the Revolutionary Guard, General Hossein Kan'ani Moghadam, said graves for any attacking U.S. troops had been dug in Iran's south-western Khuzestan province, where Iran buried Iraqi soldiers killed during the ruinous 1980-88 war between the Islamic republic and Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein's regime.

'The mass graves that used to be for burying Saddam's soldiers have now been prepared again for U.S. soldiers, and this is the reason for digging this big number of graves,' Moghadam said, according to the semi-official Fars news agency.

Moghadam, however, said American troops would likely not be able to set foot on Iranian soil, repeating warnings that Iran would retaliate against U.S. bases in the Gulf if there was an attack on Iran.

The U.S. Navy's 5th Fleet headquarters is based just across the Gulf from Iran in Bahrain.