Supreme Leader: ‎

Military reprisal not enough, US should leave region

Ayatollah Khamenei underlined that although the US has just received a slap across the face by Iran’s early ‎Wednesday morning retaliatory attacks, military reprisal is not enough and the American ‎forces should leave the region.‎

News ID: 448446

Date: 08 January 2020 - 22:09

RNA – The Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution, Ayatollah Sayyed Ali Khamenei, ‎underlined that although the US has just received a slap across the face by Iran’s early ‎Wednesday morning retaliatory attacks, military reprisal is not enough and the American ‎forces should leave the region.‎

‎“For the time being, the Americans have been given a slap, revenge is a different issue,” the ‎Leader stressed in his remarks on Wednesday.‎

‎“Military moves like this are not enough. The Americans’ corruption-stirring presence should ‎come to an end,” he added.‎

He also praised both the Iranian and Iraqi parliaments’ approvals in the last few days. The ‎Iranian parliament approved a bill that designated the US as a terrorist organization and the ‎Iraqi parliament approved a bill that requires the US army to leave the Arab country.‎

Earlier on Wednesday, the IRGC Aerospace Force launched heavy ballistic missile attacks on ‎US Ayn al-Asad airbase in Southwestern Iraq near the border with Syria and a US operated ‎airbase in Erbil in retaliation for the assassination of IRGC Qods Force Commander ‎Lieutenant General Qasem Soleymani.‎

Ayn al-Asad 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 Ayn al-Asad have failed to operate and intercept the Iranian missiles. ‎Unofficial reports said the US army’s central radar systems at Ayn al-Asad had been jammed ‎by electronic warfare.‎

Some 80 US army personnel have been killed and nearly 200 more wounded in the missile ‎attacks.‎

The second IRGC reprisal attack targeted a US military base near Erbil airport in Iraqi ‎Kurdistan Region in the second leg of “Martyr Soleymani” reprisal operation.‎

All flights have been cancelled at Erbil airport.‎

Iraq said the attacks have not taken any toll from its army men stationed at these two ‎bases. The US army had blocked entrance into Ayn al-Asad to everyone, including the Iraqi ‎army.‎

This is the first direct attack on the US army ever since world war two.‎

IRGC officials said none of the missiles had been intercepted.‎

Following the attack, the IRGC issued a statement immediately after the attacks, declaring ‎that it has fired tens of ground-to-ground missiles at “the airbase occupied by the terrorist ‎and aggressive army of the United States known as Ayn al-Asad” in reprisal for the ‎martyrdom of IRGC Qods Force Commaner Lieutenant General Qasem Soleymani.‎

The IRGC warned the US to avoid retaliating the Wednesday attack or else “it will face a ‎more painful and crushing response”.‎

The IRGC Statement also warned “all the US allied states where the terrorist army has a ‎base, any territory that becomes the origin of any hostile and aggressive action against the ‎Islamic Republic of Iran in any way will be targeted”.‎

‎“We believe that the Zionist regime by no means stands aside from the criminal US regime in ‎these crimes.”‎

The IRGC also called on the American nation to pressure the White House to pull their ‎troops out of the region to avoid further damage and not allow the US rulers to endanger ‎the lives of their military men through increasing hatred.‎

All Iranian underground missile towns are on alert.‎

The missile attack came hours before the body of General Soleymani was laid to rest.‎

Lieutenant General Soleymani was martyred in a targeted assassination attack by the US ‎drones at Baghdad International Airport early on Friday morning.‎

According to Fars News Agency, the airstrike also martyred Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, deputy commander of Iraq’s Popular ‎Mobilization Forces (PMF), or Hashd al-Sha’bi. 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.‎

The attack came amid tensions that started by the US attack on PMF units that killed 28 Iraqi ‎popular forces. A day later, Iraqi people attacked the US embassy in Baghdad.‎

The targeted assassination attack represents a dramatic escalation by the US toward Iran ‎after months of tensions. The tensions take root in Trump’s decision in May 2018 to ‎withdraw the US from Iran’s nuclear deal with world powers, struck under his predecessor.‎

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