The president of Iran declared this Tuesday that the “assassination” of Qassem Soleimani will be “avenged”, on the occasion of the third anniversary of the death of the commander of the Revolutionary Guard, the ideological Army of the Islamic Republic, publicly marked by thousands of people.
General Qassem Soleimani, a charismatic and popular figure in Iran, was killed in an attack by US drones at the Baghdad airport on January 3, 2020, on the orders of then-US President Donald Trump.
“We have not and will not forget the blood of the martyr Soleimani,” Ebrahim Raisi declared.
In an intervention before thousands of people who marked the anniversary of the death of the general today, the Iranian president warned “the murderers and organizers” of the crime that “the revenge of the blood of the martyr Soleimani is true and that those who perpetrated the death You won’t be able to sleep easily.”
In 2021, Raisi blamed former US President Donald Trump for the death of Qassem Soleimani and vowed revenge if he was not tried for this attack.
However, Trump is not the only American on the list of suspects.
Iran “has identified and prosecuted 154 defendants, of whom 96 are US citizens,” Justice spokesman Massoud Setayeshi said.
Before the crowd, gathered in the largest prayer hall in Tehran in homage to the former commander of the Quds Force (the foreign operations branch of the Revolutionary Guard), the Iranian president assured that the defeat of the ‘jihadist’ group Islamic State (IS) It was the prelude to the defeat of “American hegemony” in the world.
“The martyr Soleimani defeated the United States, the supporters of the terrorist movement and the Islamic State in the region (…) and was the prelude to the defeat of American hegemony in the world,” he said before thousands of people. who waved flags or displayed banners with photos of the commander who died three years ago.
General Qassem Soleimani, the architect of Iran’s regional military actions, was killed along with Iraqi Lieutenant Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis during a US drone strike near the airport in the Iraqi capital, where he had just landed.
Iran retaliated five days later by firing missiles at a US airbase in Ain al-Assad where US troops were stationed in Iraq. Tehran also fired another projectile near Erbil, in the north of the country.
These attacks did not cause any casualties among US troops, but Washington stated that dozens of people suffered traumatic brain injuries from the explosions.
At the time, President Trump declared that he had ordered a military drone action in response to several attacks on US interests in Iraq, and that others would follow.
On Monday, Iran’s Jam Jam newspaper, considered close to power, published the names and photos of 51 Americans it said were involved in the attack on Soleimani and were “under the shadow of retaliation.”
The list includes current and former senior civilian and military officials, as well as military personnel involved in maintaining aircraft at various bases.
Raisi accused the United States of promoting a “hybrid war” against Iran, referring to protests in the country in recent months following the death of a young woman in police custody.
Iranian officials accused Washington and other foreign powers of having encouraged the recent protests in the country, strongly repressed by the authorities and with hundreds of deaths and injuries recorded, but without providing concrete evidence of such interference.
Source: TSF
