Iran vows ‘hit’ on all involved in US killing of top general

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 U.S. 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.”
U.S. 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 U.S. 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 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.