German Free Democratic Party (FDP) deputy parliamentary group leader Alexander Graf Lambsdorff has warned Iran could target Europe for retaliatory terror attacks after the killing of General Qasem Soleimani.
Mr Lambsdorff, the FPD’s foreign policy expert, said that the killing of the al-Quds unit head could spark retaliation in Europe, stating, “We have to expect attacks, terror, retaliation in Europe!”
He went on to label the slain Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps leader a “terrorist in uniform”, German tabloid Bild reports.
Speaking to broadcaster RBB, Lambsdorff urged German security services to engage in closer co-operation with their European and American counterparts to prevent any possible attacks.
He said that Soleimani was not only the chief strategist for Iran’s aggressive policies abroad but that the former general was also incredibly popular within Iran.
“Iran will not be able to put up with [his killing],” he warned — but added that he thought the U.S. strike was justified and a “defensive measure.”
Former Bundeswehr military commissioner Reinhold Robbe told Bild that General Soleimani had already compiled a list of targets in Germany before his death, and that the Iranian regime had personally spied on him two years ago in order to select targets for terror attacks.
“Regardless of his immediate responsibility for the spying attack on me, Soleimani was the mastermind behind and responsible for thousands of murders, torture, persecution, and brutal repression of opposition and minorities in Iran,” Robbe said.
Several European countries have seen Iranian-linked terror plots in recent years, including France, where officials claimed the regime was linked to a foiled terror attack in Paris’s Villepinte suburb.
Authorities claimed that Iranian Deputy Minister of Intelligence, Saeid Hashemi Moghadam, was behind the plot, which would have allegedly seen a rally of the Mujahedin-e-Khalq (MEK) movement bombed.
Iranian diplomat Assadollah Assadi was also accused of involvement in the terror plot and was extradited by a German court to Belgium after being arrested near the city of Aschaffenburg in July of 2018.