Chief commander of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps said here Saturday the strategic revenge that will follow U.S. assassination of General Qassem Soleimani will surely end Washington’s regional presence.
“General Soleimani’s assassination is the beginning of the end of the U.S.’s presence in the region,” Major General Hussein Salami, the chief commander of the IRGC, told IRIB news agency.
Salami said the assassination has given rise to such “vengeance and hatred” across the Muslim world that it has negated all U.S. efforts to present itself as a friend of nations.
“Soleimani’s assassination led to the collapse of Washington’s policy in the Islamic world,” he said.
The remarks were echoed by the IRGC’s Navy commander who vowed a furious revenge.
“We are prepared to exact a great revenge on the murderers, operatives, and supporters behind the atrocity, which witnessed the assassination of Lieutenant General Qassem Soleimani,” Rear Admiral Alireza Tangsiri said.
Tangsiri said General Soleimani was the symbol of struggle against terrorism, and those who assassinated him are the “most ruthless people of the world”.
Major General Yahya Rahim Safavi, a top military advisor to Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei, said since the assassination thousands of American forces have got holed up in their hideouts, fearing reprisal by the regional resistance movement.
“It is this very fear which will pave the way for their defeat,” he said. Gholamali Abuhamzeh, a senior IRGC commander, said Tehran would punish Americans “wherever they are in reach”.
Abuhamzeh, the IRGC commander in Kerman province, mentioned a series of possible targets for reprisals including the Persian Gulf waterway through which about a third of the world’s shipborne oil is exported to global markets.
“The Strait of Hormuz is a vital point for the West and a large number of American destroyers and warships cross there,” Abuhamzeh was quoted as saying by the Tasnim news agency.
“Vital American targets in the region have long since been identified by Iran…Some 35 U.S. targets in the region as well as Tel Aviv are within our reach,” he said.
Mohamed Raad, a political leader in Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement, said retaliation by the Iran-backed “axis of resistance” – in countries from Lebanon to Yemen – would be decisive, Al-Mayadeen TV reported on Saturday.
Senior IRGC commander Brigadier General Abolfazl Shekarchi said Tehran will be “patient” in setting the right “time and place” for its retaliation.
“We will set up a plan, patiently, to respond to this terrorist act in a crushing and powerful manner,” he said. “We are the ones who set the time and place of our reciprocal response.”
The IRGC commander said Tehran openly announces that it will defend the “axis of resistance” with all its might. Iran’s response to the United States, he said, will
Shekarchi also said the U.S. assassination “removed the mask” off the face of Washington and its support for Daesh terrorists which have been largely defeated due to anti-terrorist forces led by Soleimani and al-Muhandis.
The resistance against U.S. aggression will not be weakened by the assassinations of the commanders as “their thought” has spread among the people of the region, he added.
Iran’s Supreme National Security Council said it examined various aspects of the assassination during its extraordinary session Saturday and made “appropriate decisions”.
The council “announces that the regime of the United States of America will be responsible for all the consequences of this criminal adventurism,” it said in a statement.
source: This article/news was published on Friday, 05 January 2020 on the http://kayhan.ir/en/news/74736