Lieutenant General Soleimani, along with Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the deputy chief of the Iraqi pro-government Popular Mobilization Units (PMU), was assassinated during the early hours of Friday. Four other Iranians as well as four Iraqis accompanying them were also martyred.
The Pentagon said in a statement that American President Donald Trump had ordered the US military to assassinate the top Iranian commander.
Following Soleimani’s assassination, Ayatollah Khamenei said those who assassinated the IRGC Quds Force commander must await a harsh revenge, noting that the “cruelest people on earth” assassinated the “honorable” commander who “courageously fought for years against the evils and bandits of the world.”
Iran’s Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) has also said that a harsh vengeance “in due time and right place” awaited the criminals behind Soleimani’s assassination.
The targeted assassination has raised fears of a conflagration between the US and Iran, prompting many countries in the region as well as in Europe to call on all parties to show restraint.
However, Brigadier General Dehghan said that Iran would not seek war with the US.
On Saturday, Trump threatened in a number of tweets that if Tehran attacked American assets, Washington would strike “52” Iranian targets, “very hard and very fast.”
Dehghan described the American president’s tweets as “ridiculous and absurd.”
Dehghan referred to UN Resolution 2347, which condemns the unlawful destruction of cultural heritage, blasting Trump who had also threatened that an unspecified number of those targets would be Iran’s cultural sites.
The Iranian military commander added that if logic and rationality were to be taken into account, Trump would be considered a war criminal, who would be tried in a relevant court of law.
Earlier on Sunday, Iran’s Foreign Minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, also lambasted Trump’s threat of striking Iran’s cultural sites.
“Targeting cultural sites is a WAR CRIME; -Whether kicking or screaming, end of US malign presence in West Asia has begun,” he said.
When asked what would happen if the US president were to carry out his threat to hit any of Iran’s cultural sites, Dehghan vowed that no US target would be beyond the reach of Iran’s attacks.
Lieutenant General Soleimani was an international figure who played a leading role in promoting security in regional countries, particularly in Iraq and Syria. Both commanders were admired by Muslim nations for eliminating the US-sponsored Daesh terrorist group in the region.
