Tehran Friday Prayer Leader: ‎

IRGC’s missile attacks on US bases in Iraq just beginning of revenge

Hujjat al-Islam Haj-Ali-Akbari hailed the IRGC for hitting the ‎American military bases in Iraq hard, and said the IRGC missile strike only triggered the start of ‎the revenge.‎

News ID: 448460

Date: 10 January 2020 - 18:39

RNA – Addressing a large and fervent congregation of the people attending Friday prayer in ‎Tehran, Hujjat al-Islam Mohammad-Javad Haj-Ali-Akbari said, “Iran’s promised ‘severe ‎revenge’ on the United States over the assassination of General Qasem Soleymani has just ‎started.”‎

He reiterated that from now on, American interests across the world will be posed to ‎extensive threats, and said, “This American regime has numerous military bases; from now ‎on, having too many bases, especially in this region, won’t be an advantage for them.”‎

General Soleymani, the Commander of the IRGC’s Qods Force, was martyred in a targeted ‎assassination attack by the American drones at Baghdad International Airport early on Friday ‎morning, according to Fars News Agency.‎
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The airstrike also martyred Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, deputy commander of Iraq’s Popular ‎Mobilization Forces (PMF). 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 an American drone at ‎Baghdad International Airport.‎

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

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

On Wednesday, the IRGC Aerospace Force launched heavy ballistic missile attacks on the ‎United States’ Ayn al-Asad airbase in Southwestern Iraq near the border with Syria and a ‎American operated airbase in Erbil in retaliation for the assassination of General Soleymani.‎

Ayn al-Asad is an airbase with a 4 kilometre runway at 188 metres above sea level, which is ‎the main and the largest American airbase in Iraq. Early reports said the radar systems and ‎missile defense shields in Ayn al-Asad had failed to operate and intercept the Iranian missiles. ‎

Unofficial reports said the American army’s central radar systems at Ayn al-Asad had been ‎jammed by electronic warfare.‎

Some 80 American army personnel were killed and nearly 200 more wounded in Iran’s ‎Wednesday missile attacks, informed sources said.‎

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

All flights were cancelled at Erbil airport.‎

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

It was the first direct attack on the American army ever since WWII.‎

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 had 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 General Qasem Soleymani.‎

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

The IRGC Statement also warned “all the American 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 American ‎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 American rulers to ‎endanger the lives of their military men through increasing hatred.‎

All Iranian underground missile towns were on alert.‎

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

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