Speaker: New Iranian Parliament to Continue the path of Martyr Qassem Soleimani

Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf said that the new legislative body will continue the path of martyred IRGC Quds Force Commander Lieutenant General Qassem Soleimani and support for the resistance groups.

“The 11th parliament is committed to continue the path of martyr Soleimani to increase the power of the resistance pivot as an unchangeable strategy and considers support for the Palestinian nation, the Lebanese Hezbollah, the resistance groups, Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the oppressed Yemeni people as its revolution and national responsibility and will always stand with and is ready to cooperate with the Iraqi people, government and senior clerics in all fields,” Qalibaf said, addressing an open session of the parliament on Saturday.

He added that the new parliament also assesses talks and compromise with the US “fruitless and harmful”.

“Our strategy to confront the terrorist US entails completion of the chain of revenge for the blood of martyr Soleimani; something that started with the unprecedented attack against Ein Al-Assad base and continued by shattering the hollow awe of the US after it failed to respond to the Islamic Republic’s move and will complete with the full expulsion of the US terrorist army from the region,” Qalibaf said.

Lieutenant General Soleimani and Deputy Commander of Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis were assassinated in a US drone strike on Baghdad International Airport in Iraq on January 3.

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.

Iran has repeatedly stressed that Ein Al-Assad missile attack was just the start of its revenge for the US assassination of its top General, and not the end of it. Tehran has declared expulsion of the US troops from the region as its ultimate goal.