Iran Warns to Punish US Accomplices in Assassination of General Soleimani

Iran on Monday warned to punish any country or regime that has collaborated with the US in the assassination of IRGC Quds Force Commander Lieutenant General Qassem Soleimani.

News ID: 448555

Date: 21 January 2020 - 10:55

RNA - "If the security and military specialists in Iran conclude that a country or regime has collaborated and helped this cowardly act, it will pay the price," Foreign Ministry Spokesman Seyed Abbas Mousavi told reporters in Tehran on Monday.

He, meantime, underlined that Iran is not after increasing tensions in the region, and said, "We are not after war but we are ready to strongly defend against any mischief."

Elsewhere, Mousavi dismissed any possibility for talks with the US.

The hero of anti-terrorism fight in the region, Lieutenant General Qassem Soleimani, was brutally assassinated by the terrorist army of the US at Baghdad International Airport on January 03.

Pentagon also martyred Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, deputy commander of Iraq's Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), or Hashad al-Shabi, five Iranian, and five Iraqi militaries.

The strike brought the United States and Iran to the brink of war, with Tehran retaliating by launching missiles at military bases in Iraq housing American troops.

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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