"This year, we carried out tactical drills which resembled real combat in Fordo, Tehran, Natanz, Bushehr and Isfahan," where the country's nuclear plants are located, the Mehr news agency quoted Ahmad Mighani as saying.

Mighani did not specify when exactly the exercises were conducted.

Israel and the United States have not ruled out a resort to military action to prevent Iran developing a nuclear weapons capability, an ambition Iran strongly denies.

Mighani said the armed forces will stage a new five-day air defense drill starting Nov. 16 "all over the country in order to improve defense capability," the Fars news agency reported.

Following the latest package of U.N. sanctions on Iran, Russia refused to deliver long sought-after S-300 ground-to-air missiles.

A top commander said Nov. 10 that Iran would soon test its own version of the S-300. It was unclear whether that would be during the upcoming war games.