Anti-aircraft guns guarding Natanz Nuclear Facility, Iran. Photo: wiki commons.

Iran’s Hojjat al-Eslam Ali Saidi is the representative of Iran’s Supreme Leader to the Iran Revolutionary Guards Corps. In a recent speech Ali Saidi appears to promote increased chaos in the region in an effort to bring about the Mahdi, or the Twelfth Imam who will redeem Islam.

“The fourth way [of bringing about the arrival of the Mahdi] is by preparing upheaval in the Middle East and so long as there is not total upheaval in Middle East then the Imam of the Era [Mahdi] will not arrive,” he is quoted as saying.

“Before the arrival of [the Mahdi] we needed a Mahdi government, and the Iranian Islamic Revolution was along the path of the arrival of Imam of the Era.”

Thursday, Iran informed the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) that it plans to install more sophisticated equipment at its principal nuclear plant, Natanz, in an effort to speed up uranium enrichment.