Iran's Judiciary Chief Seyed Ebrahim Rayeesi vowed to force the US officials involved in the assassination of IRGC Qods Force Commander Lieutenant General Qassem Soleimani to stand trial, stressing that Iranian and US officials may only meet each other at court. RNA - "We will meet the murderers of Qassem Soleimani sooner or later but not for negotiations," Rayeesi said in Tehran on Monday, addressing a meeting of the High Council of the Judiciary.
"We will pursue the case via international bodies and we will meet the murderers of the martyred General for trying and punishing them for this horrible crime," he added.
Rayeesi also said that since the crime has been committed by the US in Iraq, the country's authorities have pursued the case, and expressed the hope that the two countries' judiciary departments would cooperate in the case.
Lieutenant General Soleimani was assassinated in a US drone strike on Baghdad International Airport in Iraq on January 3.
The airstrike also martyred Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, deputy commander of Iraq's Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), or Hashad al-Shaabi. The two were martyred in an American airstrike that targeted their vehicle on the road to the airport.
Five Iranian and five Iraqi militaries were martyred by missiles fired by the US drone at Baghdad International Airport.
On January 8, the IRGC Aerospace Force started heavy ballistic missile attacks on US Ein Al-Assad airbase in Southwestern Iraq near the border with Syria and a US operated airbase in Erbil in retaliation for the US assassination of General Soleimani.
Ein Al-Assad is an airbase with a 4km runway at 188m altitude from sea levels, which is the main and the largest US airbase in Iraq. Early reports said the radar systems and missile defense shields in Ein Al-Assad failed to operate and intercept the Iranian missiles. Unofficial reports said the US army's central radar systems at Ein Al-Assad had been jammed by electronic warfare.
According to Fars News Agency, the second IRGC reprisal attack targeted a US military base near Erbil airport in Iraqi Kurdistan Region in the second leg of "Martyr Soleimani" reprisal operation.
Iraq said the attacks had not taken any toll from its army men stationed at these two bases. The US army had blocked entrance into Ein Al-Assad to everyone, including the Iraqi army.
It was the first direct attack on the US army ever since world war two.
The IRGC officials said none of the missiles had been intercepted.
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