Iranian Gen. Hossein Salami, head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, on Saturday threatened “revenge” against the United States for the drone attack that killed the country’s top general in January.
Salami vowed to “hit” those involved in the drone strike, The Associated Press reported. The IRGC’s website quoted Salami as saying “Mr. Trump! Our revenge for martyrdom of our great general is obvious, serious and real.”
The direct threat comes after a report that alleged Iran was plotting to assassinate the U.S. ambassador to South Africa as retaliation for the drone strike that killed Gen. Qassem Soleimani while he was at the Baghdad airport in January. Salami denied the report, which would have resulted in the death of U.S. Ambassador Lana Marks.
“Do you think we hit a female ambassador in return to our martyred brother?’ Salami said, according to the AP. “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 response to the report suggesting otherwise, President Donald Trump tweeted that if Iran “hit us in any way, any form, written instructions already done we’re going to hit them 1000 times harder.”
More from the AP:
In January, Iran launched a ballistic missile attack targeting U.S. 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.
As The Daily Wire previously reported, Trump ordered the airstrike on Soleimani, the world’s top terrorist at the time, in January. Democrats and their media supporters collectively mourned for Soleimani’s death and attacked. The Daily Wire’s Joe Curl reported that Soleimani helped plan the September 11, 2012, Benghazi attack, which killed four Americans including U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens.
After Soleimani’s death, Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo released details on a terror attack the former IRGC-Quds Force leader was planning. The Daily Wire’s Ryan Saavedra reported:
During a White House press briefing on Friday, Pompeo said, “We had specific information on an imminent threat, and those threats included attacks on U.S. embassies. Period. Full stop.”
Pompeo said the only thing that U.S. officials did not know was the exact minute or day that Soleimani was going to launch the attack but that “it was very clear” that “Qassem Soleimani himself was plotting a broad, large-scale attack against American interests. And those attacks were imminent.”
When asked about what targets Soleimani had designated, Pompeo said, “American facilities, including American embassies, military bases. American facilities throughout the region.”