IRGC Deputy Commander: Iran’s Harsh Revenge for US Assassination of General Soleimani Yet to Come

Islamic Revolution Guards Corps Deputy Commander for Coordination Brigadier General Mohammad Reza Naqdi said that the IRGC’s missile attack against the US base in Iraq was just a tip of the iceberg of Iran’s harsh revenge for the assassination of former commander of the IRGC Quds Force Lieutenant General Qassem Soleimani.

“The response (revenge) is that the US should leave the region and this will happen. The attack on Ein Al-Assad was merely declaration of the Islamic Republic’s determination to respond,” General Naqdi said in an interview with the state TV on Sunday.

He underlined that the US has not yet received Iran’s response, and said, “The blow hit at Ein Al-Assad was important and all the world powers sent messages to Iran that they did not dare to do it. The world understood how much the Islamic Republic is mighty and how much the US has grown weak.”

^{IRGC Deputy Commander for Coordination General Naqdi}

“The attack had very big consequences but it was not the harsh revenge (vowed by Iran),” General Naqdi said.

Lieutenant General Soleimani was assassinated in a US drone strike on Baghdad International Airport in Iraq on January 3.

The airstrike also martyred Deputy Commander of Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis. The two were martyred in an American airstrike that targeted their vehicle on the road to the airport.

Five Iranian and five Iraqi military men were martyred by the 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.

Meantime, Iran announced in late June that it had issued arrest warrants for 36 officials of the US and other countries who have been involved in the assassination of the martyred General Soleimani.

“36 individuals who have been involved or ordered the assassination of Hajj Qassem, including the political and military officials of the US and other governments, have been identified and arrest warrants have been issued for them by the judiciary officials and red alerts have also been issued for them via the Interpol,” Prosecutor-General of Tehran Ali Alqasi Mehr said.

He said that the prosecuted individuals are accused of murder and terrorist action, adding that US President Donald Trump stands at the top of the list and will be prosecuted as soon as he stands down presidency after his term ends.