Iran vows revenge if Donald Trump is not put on trial

The Islamic Republic repeated its vow of revenge on the anniversary of the 2020 American drone strike that killed the long-time head of its deadly Quds Force.

By Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News

The Iranian president threatened revenge Monday against former U.S. president Donald Trump unless he is put on trial for the assassination two years ago of one of the Islamic Republic’s top military commanders.

“The aggressor and the main assassin, the then-president of the United States, must face justice and retribution,” President Ebrahim Raisi told thousands of followers in the country’s main event marking the exact date in 2020 that Maj. Gen. Qasem Soleimani was killed in his car in Iraq by American-sent drones.

Trump, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and “other criminals” should be put on trial “in a fair court where their horrible crimes were addressed and they faced justice for their actions,” he added.

“Otherwise, I will tell all US leaders that without a doubt the hand of revenge will emerge from the sleeve of the Muslim nation.”

As head of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps’ (IRGC) Quds Force, Soleimani led the country’s foreign campaigns that included controlling proxy terrorist groups in Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Yemen and the Gaza Strip.

When announcing the “successful precision strike,” Trump said it had killed “the number one terrorist anywhere in the world,” who had been planning to attack four U.S. embassies and posed an imminent threat to the country’s security. His administration’s policy on those terrorists who threatened Americans and their allies was that “We will find you, we will eliminate you.” And under Soleimani’s years-long leadership, he said, the Quds Force had “targeted, injured and murdered hundreds of American civilians and servicemen.”

Trump never regretted the move, telling campaign rallies before the 2020 elections that the arch-terrorist “was the king of the roadside bomb,” responsible for thousands of civilians losing arms and legs in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere.

The threats against senior American figures are not new. Just over two weeks after the assassination, the IRGC commander, Maj. Gen. Hossein Salami, warned, “Americans should know that we will target anyone who has had a role in the cowardly assassination of General Soleimani.”

Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, also vowed retribution, saying in December 2020 that “Those who ordered the murder of Gen. Soleimani, as well as those who carried this out, should be punished. This revenge will certainly happen at the right time.”

During this year’s commemoration the Islamic Republic did not just point an accusing finger at the past administration. Its foreign ministry tweeted Friday that “the current US government bears definitive international responsibility for this crime.”