TEHRAN — The chief of Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard threatened Saturday to go after everyone who had a role in a top general’s January killing during a US drone strike in Iraq.
The guard’s website quoted Gen. Hossein Salami as saying, “Mr. Trump! Our revenge for martyrdom of our great general is obvious, serious and real.”
US President Donald Trump warned this week that Washington would harshly respond to any Iranian attempts to take revenge for the death of Gen. Qassem Soleimani, tweeting that “if they hit us in any way, any form, written instructions already done we’re going to hit them 1000 times harder.”
The president’s warning came in response to a report that Iran was plotting to assassinate the US ambassador to South Africa in retaliation for Soleimani’s killing at Baghdad’s airport at the beginning of the year.
“We took out the world’s number one terrorist and the mass murderer of American troops and many, many troops and many people all over the world,” Trump said. “Qasem Soleimani is dead. He’s dead. Bad guy. Bad guy. Very bad guy.”
Salami rejected the report of an Iranian plot to assassinate Ambassador Lana Marks, but made clear that Iran intends to avenge the general’s death.
“Do you think we hit a female ambassador in return to our martyred brother?’ the general said. “We will hit those who had direct and indirect roles. You should know that everybody who had role in the event will be hit, and this is a serious message. We do prove everything in practice.”
In January, Iran launched a ballistic missile attack targeting US soldiers in Iraq in response to the fatal drone strike.
Trump has stepped up economic pressure on Iran with sanctions since he pulled the United States out of Iran’s nuclear deal with world powers in 2018.
Tehran has continued to expand its stockpile of enriched uranium and pressured other nations to offset the harm of U.S. sanctions, while insisting it does not want to develop a nuclear weapon.
New Iranian threats come as President Donald Trump’s administration says that on Saturday (2000 EDT/0000 GMT Sunday) all United Nations sanctions on Iran have to be restored and a conventional arms embargo on the country will no longer expire in mid-October.
But diplomats say few countries are likely to reimpose the measures, which were lifted under a 2015 deal between world powers and Iran that aimed to stop Tehran developing nuclear weapons.
A return of UN sanctions, a so-called snapback, would require Iran to suspend all nuclear enrichment-related and reprocessing activities, including research and development, and ban imports of anything that could contribute to those activities or to development of nuclear weapon delivery systems.
It would reimpose the arms embargo, ban Iran from developing ballistic missiles capable of delivering nuclear weapons and bring back targeted sanctions on dozens of individuals and entities. Countries also would be urged to inspect shipments to and from Iran and authorized to seize any banned cargo.
Trump plans to issue an executive order allowing him to impose US sanctions on anyone who violates the UN arms embargo on Iran, in a bid to reinforce the US assertion that the measure has been extended indefinitely beyond October 18.
Content retrieved from: https://thearabweekly.com/iran-guards-chief-threatens-revenge-us-re-imposes-sanctions?utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Twitter#Echobox=1600519082.
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