The Iranian regime commemorated Soleimani’s death and again threatened “one last revenge” on the US.

Iran this Sunday commemorates the first anniversary of the death of its “architect” in the region’s foreign military policy, General Qasem Soleimani, in a US airstrike at Baghdad airport. (Iraq) with calls for revenge on the United States, which has again accused it of “an act of international terrorism”.

This is how Iranian Foreign Minister Mohamad Yavad Zarif spoke out this weekend, who Soleimani described as “the most effective force in the fight against Al Qaeda and the Islamic State.” “By committing a cowardly act of terror against General Soleimani, the US violated international law and the UN Charter in a blatant violation of Iraqi sovereignty,” he said on his Twitter account. “Iran will not rest until it brings those responsible to justice,” he said.

The United States at the time declared Soleimani’s death as a necessary resource “to protect American personnel abroad.” The Pentagon, which specified that it was the President of the United States, Donald Trump, who led the attack, revealed in a statement that Soleimani “was actively developing plans to attack US diplomats in Iraq and the entire region.”

Washington was referring to the demonstrations that took place days before at the US embassy, ​​prompted by the US bombings in Iraq and Syria against the Kataib Hezbollah militia. According to the statement Soleimani approved the attacks on the US embassy.

In a public speech on Sunday, Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) spokesman, Brigadier General Ramezan Sharif, accused the United States of looting land in the region and praised the late general as a control dam that “the US plot to to disintegrate regional states. “

Revenge

Iranian President Hassan Rohani and Defense Secretary Amir Hatami spoke louder, in a joint pledge of revenge against the United States.

For the General, Iran’s great revenge for General Soleimani’s blood is “the expulsion of US troops from the region”, as he announced during a speech at the Tehran Military Academy, picked up by the official IRNA news agency.

On Wednesday, Rohani, for his part, threatened to “cut off the legs” of the United States in retaliation for the general’s death. “They have cut off our general’s hand and his legs will be cut off from the region,” the president said during a session of his cabinet meeting. “The Iranian people reserve the right to retaliate for the blood of their general,” the president added.

“As long as the United States remains in this region, our final vengeance will not be fulfilled,” the president concluded.

Soleimani, who heads the al-Quds force within the all-powerful Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, was a fundamental figure in understanding Iran’s presence in the region’s major conflicts and as the executive arm of the country’s supreme leader , Ali Khamenei. His death in the attack that also claimed the life of one of his trusted men and presumed ‘number two’ of the Iraqi Popular Mobilization Forces (FMP), Abu Mahdi al Muhandis, as acknowledged at the time by the ayatollah and leader Iranian supreme Ali Khamenei , a “bitter loss”.

Not in vainWas Soleimani considered the architect of the strategy that has enabled Iran to spread its power in the Middle East in recent years, from Lebanon to Syria to Iraq and Yemen, and in the words of Ali Soufan, a former FBI agent and anti-terrorist expert, “the most powerful general” in the region.

This general, who started his career in the war with Iraq in the 1980s when he was only 20 years old, was the one who has been pulling the strings in terms of presence and influence for the last two decades, and especially the last few years. of Iran. both directly and through related groups and militias – the so-called ‘proxy’ – across the region.

The Al Quds force he has commanded since 1998 numbers between 10,000 and 20,000 and, like Daniel Byman, a Georgetown University professor and expert at the Center for Middle East Policy at Brookings Institution, is in charge of offering training, weapons, organizational guidelines and other support to a range of pro-Iranian groups ”.

For example, he had collaborated with Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shia terror group, whose leader, Hasan Nasrallah, was one of the first to condemn his death and promise revenge and continue “backlash” against the United States.

Iran has been supplying Hezbollah with weapons through Syria for years, and Soleimani maintains close relationships with many of the organization’s leaders. Likewise, the al-Quds force maintains close ties with Palestinian terrorist groups such as Hamas or Islamic Jihad.

Mourning in Iraq

Thousands of Iraqis have already started marching to Tahrir Square in Baghdad to celebrate the anniversary of the deaths of Soleimani and Al Muhandis, the so-called ‘victory leaders’.

Dozens of vehicles took part in the transport of the participants from the provinces to the place of the demonstration, which starts around 1:00 pm.

Former Iraqi Prime Minister Haider el Abadi was one of the first figures in national politics to remember the deceased, before warning of a possible escalation of violence in the region, in addition to accusations by the United States of violating its sovereignty by the United States. attack on their territory and without the permission of the authorities.

“Today is the first anniversary of the bloody airport incident, in which the leaders who fought with us to defeat the Islamic State were martyred, and Iraq’s sovereignty was violated and its security violated,” he said in his report. from Twitter. “The escalation we warn about could plunge Iraq and the region into devastating conflict, although it is one that can be overcome if we use wisdom and protect our country’s sovereignty and interests,” he added.

With information from Europa Press

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