'God willing, we will be able to kill...': Iran commander's threat to Trump & Mike Pompeo

On Friday, a high-ranking commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) stated that Iran is aiming to assassinate senior US officials, including former President Donald Trump, for their alleged role in the killing of Iranian military commander Qassem Soleimani in 2020, reported Al Arabiya. “God willing, we will be able to kill Trump…(former US secretary of state Mike) Pompeo, (former head of US Central Command General Kenneth) McKenzie and those military commanders that gave the order (to kill Soleimani) must be killed,” Amirali Hajizadeh, the head of the IRGC’s aerospace unit, said on state TV.

Hajizadeh mentioned this intention during a discussion about Iran's January 8, 2020 missile strike on the Ain al-Assad air base in western Iraq. The attack occurred five days after the killing of Qassem Soleimani, and while American troops were stationed at the base, there were no US casualties reported from the attack. 

Qassem Soleimani, the commander of the Quds Force which is the overseas branch of the IRGC, was killed in an airstrike in Iraq that was ordered by former US President Donald Trump. Iranian officials have made several promises to seek revenge for the death of Qassem Soleimani, as they consider the attack on the Ain al-Assad air base to be an inadequate response.

During the third anniversary of Qassem Soleimani's death last month, Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi stated that retribution for Soleimani was "inevitable." In November, Khamenei stated that Iran would always remember the killing of Soleimani, and reaffirmed Tehran's commitment to seeking revenge for his death.

Who was Qassem Soleimani?

Qassem Soleimani held the position of commander of the Quds Force, which is one of the five branches of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). He was regarded as the second most influential figure in Iran, answering to the Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. 

On January 3, 2020, a US drone strike targeted and killed Soleimani, near the Baghdad International Airport in Iraq as he was en route to a meeting with Iraqi Prime Minister Adil Abdul-Mahdi. Khamenei has referred to Qasem Soleimani as a "living martyr of the revolution," but the United States regarded him as a brutal assassin, reported CNN.

“The puppet master is dead; the strings have been cut,” Michael Knights, a Gulf expert at the Washington Institute with years of experience working with local military and security agencies in Iraq and the Persian Gulf, had told CNBC back in 2020. 

Throughout his 20-year tenure as a commander in the Quds Force, the foreign operations unit of Iran's elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Soleimani largely operated in secrecy. However, in recent years before his death, he had gained notoriety as the face of Iran's expanding influence in the Middle East. He was recognized as the mastermind behind the Islamic Republic's vast network of proxies extending from Iraq and Lebanon to Syria, Yemen, and Afghanistan.

Soleimani's unique ability to shape Iran's foreign policy and conduct covert offensive operations, which the Trump administration labeled as "malign activities" against US regional interests and allies, made him an unmatched military and intelligence operative in the region.

Soleimani's death further escalated tensions between the United States and Iran.