Iran will not stop its pursuit of the perpetrators of Qasem Soleimani’s assassination until it avenges his killers, Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian has indicated.
“The issue of General Soleimani will never be forgotten. The issue is so deep that even [Russian President Vladimir] Putin pointed to the important position and role of General Soleimani during his meetings with the Leader of the Islamic Revolution and the Iranian president,” Amir-Abdollahian said in an interview with Iranian TV.
“We consider avenging the blood of Martyr Soleimani in legal, international and political arenas and deem following up on the issue in all aspects as our absolute responsibility,” the diplomat added.
Iran asked Interpol to issue a red notice for the arrest of Donald Trump and 47 other officials last year, but the international police organization rejected the request, citing rules preventing it from undertaking “any intervention or activities of a political, military, religious or racial character.”
The Islamic Republic has also threatened to take Trump and his minions to court, either in Iran itself, in Iraq (where Soleimani was killed), or The Hague.
Iran launched missile strikes against US bases in Iraq several days after Soleimani’s killing, giving more than a hundred American soldiers traumatic brain injuries, but has refused to respond in a tit-for-tat assassination spree, saying it could not find any US military commanders or politicians valuable enough.
Last month, after former Trump secretary of state Mike Pompeo accused Soleimani of secretly plotting to kill “500 Americans,” the late commander’s daughter, Zainab Soleimani, took to Twitter to call him out as a “liar” and say he should “live in fear.”
Soleimani’s Quds Force is responsible for Iranian military operations abroad. During his twenty-year stint as its commander, Soleimani garnered a reputation for fighting terrorists, and protecting religious minorities, across the Middle East.
Just days after Soleimani’s assassination, the White House admitted that it had “no specific intelligence” pointing to any alleged plots by the commander to kill Americans. However, Trump maintained that that the general was “saying bad things” about the US and was a “noted terrorist” who deserved to be killed.
Last year, seven months after leaving office, Trump boasted about how he “got” Soleimani, and bragged that the commander was even “bigger” than the late al-Qaeda* leader Osama bin Laden.
Soleimani had a special relationship with Russia and Vladimir Putin, visiting Moscow in the summer of 2015 ahead of Russia’s launching of a military operation to crush jihadist forces in Syria, and, reportedly, to assist in planning.
* A terrorist group outlawed in Russia and many other countries.