Situation Report: Iran pledges revenge against US officials linked to Soleimani killing

Iranian officials commemorated the second anniversary of the killing of Gen. Qassem Soleimani by vowing revenge against former President Donald Trump, potentially assassination style. On January 3, 2020, then-U.S. President Trump ordered the targeted killing of Soleimani, leader of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Quds Force, in a drone strike. Following the commander’s assassination, Iran and its various proxies commenced a cycle of systematically targeting U.S. assets in the Middle East with drone and rocket attacks.

In a video recorded and translated by the Middle East Media Research Institute, head of Iran’s judiciary Ebrahim Raisi threatened that those involved in the targeted killing of Soleimani will “not be safe anywhere on the globe,” adding that “punishing those who gave the order and those who committed the crime is another aspect of this hard revenge. I am addressing the enemy. Let no one think that if someone holds the position of the U.S. President, yet he commits or orders a murder, he will be immune to the enforcement of law and justice and will remain on the sidelines. Never! Those who played a role in this assassination, in this crime, none of them will be safe anywhere on the globe. This is final. The steel willpower of the resistance movement will exact hard revenge from them.”

The current Quds Force Commander, General Esmail Qaani, mirrored Raisi’s rhetoric in his own remarks by indicating those involved should not feel safe “even in (their) own home.”

Qaani’s words should not be dismissed as purely symbolic considering Iranian-aligned militias attempted to assassinate the Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi in his residence in Baghdad last November.

Additionally, Iran has a history of orchestrating similar targeted killings on U.S. soil. In 2011, an Iranian American became the center of a bizarre plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to the United States by bombing a restaurant in Washington. The culprit, Mannsor Arbabsiar, was recruited by a senior member of the Quds Force to carry out the bombing and was ultimately sentenced to 25 years in prison. The plot was disrupted when Arbabsiar attempted to hire an individual he believed to represent a Mexican drug cartel to carry out the attack but who was in fact an undercover DEA agent.

More recently, an Iranian intelligence official and his three assets were charged by federal prosecutors in New York with plotting to kidnap an American journalist from U.S. soil this summer. Although the plan was intercepted and unsuccessful, it emphasizes Iran’s state sponsorship of terrorism and willingness to act on threats.

In addition to pledging “hard revenge” against the former U.S. president, Iran’s leaders sanctioned 52 Americans this week, including Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman General Mark Milley and former White House national security adviser Robert O’Brien. White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan responded to the sanctions by pledging that “should Iran attack any of our nationals, including any of the 52 people named yesterday, it will face severe consequences.”

According to Fars News, an Iranian media apparatus, regime officials plan to prosecute an additional 127 people for contributing to Soleimani’s death. These names have yet to be released.