AhlulBayt News Agency (ABNA): Commander of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) Qods Force Brigadier General Esmayeel Qa'ani vowed to take revenge for the US assassination of Lieutenant General Qassem Soleimani, saying that Iran will stand strong against bullying.
"They hit General Soleimani in a cowardly act, but there are freedom-seekers across the world who want to revenge for him with God's help, and God willing, we will hit his enemy chivalrously," General Qa'ani said, addressing a ceremony in Tehran on Monday.
"Our enemy understands no language but force and therefore, we should stand against them strongly," he added.
General Qa'ani, the former deputy of the IRGC Qods Force, was appointed as the Quds Force commander after Lieutenant General Qassem 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.
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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source : FNA
Monday
20 January 2020
2:06:24 PM
1004011
General Qa'ani: Enemies understand no language but force
Commander of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) Qods Force Brigadier General Esmayeel Qa'ani vowed to take revenge for the US assassination of Lieutenant General Qassem Soleimani, saying that Iran will stand strong against bullying.