Iran still wants to kill Trump, top general says
Tehran is still seeking to assassinate former US President Donald Trump, his secretary of state Mike Pompeo and other officials responsible for the 2020 assassination of Qassem Soleimani, Amirali Hajizadeh, the head of the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) aerospace force, said on Friday.
The top general made the remarks as he unveiled a new cruise missile, said to boast a range of 1,650 kilometers (1,025 miles).
"We hope we can kill Trump, Pompeo, [retired US general Kenneth] McKenzie and the military commanders who gave the order," Hajizadeh stated.
Iran’s top general, Qassem Soleimani, was killed in a US drone strike on January 3, 2020, while visiting Iraq's capital Baghdad. Then-president Trump repeatedly bragged about personally commissioning the attack, insisting it came in retaliation for the alleged attacks on US personnel across the region, purportedly staged by the Iranians.
Top officials in Tehran have repeatedly pledged to avenge the assassination of Soleimani, threatening to kill Trump and others behind the strike. At the same time, Iran has been pursuing a more legal route to punish the culprits, repeatedly requesting that Interpol assist in catching Trump and nearly 50 other US officials whom it believes to be linked to the strike.
It was not immediately clear from the remarks by Hajizadeh whether Tehran seeks to eliminate all the Americans it had previously sought to arrest with the help of Interpol. The organization, however, had rejected such requests, citing its charter as prohibiting it from undertaking "any intervention or activities of a political, military, religious, or racial character."
