Deputy secretary general of the Lebanese resistance movement Hezbollah has censured the assassination of Lieutenant General Qassem Soleimani, the commander of the Quds Force of Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC), stating that the United States committed a pure folly by the targeted killing. RNA - “General Soleimani was not a commander only for Iran, but rather a figure for the Muslim world and any resistance front withstanding an enemy or occupation,” Sheikh Naim Qassem said in the Iranian capital Tehran on Sunday after he visited the family of the fallen hero.
“The United States will discover that it has perpetrated a folly, and that its calculations to change regional equations were wrong.”
The high-ranking Hezbollah official said the axis of resistance has become stronger in the wake of martyrdom of General Soleimani and his companions, including the second-in-command of Iraq's Popular Mobilization Units (PMU), Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis.
“We (Hezbollah) now have more responsibilities. We will continue to pursue this honest and sincere path,” he said.
Sheikh Qassem’s remarks came only a few days after a number of Arabic-language media outlets, particularly Sky New Arabia, alleged that he has been killed in the US strike at Baghdad International Airport, where General Soleimani, the second-in-command of the Popular Mobilization Units (PMU), Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, and their companions were assassinated.
On Saturday, a senior Hezbollah official emphasized that the response of the axis of resistance to General Soleimani’s assassination will be decisive.
Speaking at a memorial ceremony held in Lebanon’s southern town of Doueir, Mohammad Raad slammed the “US’ cowardly crime” of targeting the top Iranian general, Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the second-in-command of Iraq's Popular Mobilization Units (PMU) and other resistance fighters, stressing that the act will not go unpunished.
“Whoever belongs to the axis of resistance commits himself to participating in the response, because the two martyrs represent every drop of blood that runs through our veins and every breath through which we live. Days are passing by and there is talk of a new war,” Raad, who is also the head of the Loyalty to the Resistance Bloc in the Lebanese parliament, pointed out.
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