The head of Iran’s terrorist Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), Maj. Gen. Hossein Salami, declared in remarks on Wednesday that Iran would take vengeance on Israel for an airstrike against an IRGC terrorist attributed to Jerusalem.
“The child-killing Zionist criminals should know that they will pay for the innocent blood that was shed in this crime; they should wait for the response,” Salami threatened, according to the Iranian state-run propaganda outlet PressTV.
Iran routinely threatens to destroy the state of Israel, considering it illegitimate and supporting jihadist terrorists advocating for replacing the Jewish state with a sovereign Palestinian entity. Iran is widely believed to have played a role in the deadliest terrorist attack in the history of Israel, the October 7 siege of the country by the Sunni jihadist terrorist group Hamas, which resulted in the deaths of nearly 1,200 people and the abduction of 250 people, of which an estimated 130 are believed to remain in Hamas captivity. A Hamas spokesman told the BBC on the record on October 7 that the group had “direct backing” from Iran to orchestrate the massacre.
Salami’s threats on Wednesday were in response to an airstrike in Syria targeting the IRGC, a U.S.-designated terrorist organization. The airstrike eliminated 17 people, according to PressTV, including IRGC “military adviser” Saeed Abyar, reportedly a member of the IRGC Quds Force, its foreign terrorist operations outfit. The Israeli government has not commented on the airstrike, much less confirmed its involvement.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a regional non-governmental organization, also reported that 17 people died in the airstrike, both Iranian and other fighters. The reports did not indicate any civilian casualties.
Despite this, Salami blamed the strike on Israel and said Iran expects to attack Israel in response in the near future.
“The chief commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) says the Israeli regime has to pay the price and await response for the martyrdom of one of the elite force’s military advisors,” PressTV reported, “in a recent act of aggression by the illegal entity against Syria’s northwestern city of Aleppo.”
PressTV also quoted the head of the Quds Force, Esmail Qaani, claiming that the terrorist front was prepare to aid the “resistance” against America and Israel throughout the Middle East.
“Today, all elements of the resistance front are on the path of good against evil,” Qaani said.
Despite holding one of the most important roles in Iran’s terrorist operations, Qaani has maintained a low profile and largely avoided the public eye since becoming the head of the Quds Force in 2020. Qaani rose to the position after a U.S. airstrike under former President Donald Trump killed his predecessor, top Iranian terrorist Qasem Soleimani, in Baghdad along with the head of an Iran-backed Iraqi Shiite terrorist organization, Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis. In February, Reuters reported, citing anonymous sources, that Qaani had warned Iranian proxies in Iraq to halt any plans to attack Americans in the country, apparently out of fear that he would be targeted in a similar operation to the one that eliminated Soleimani.
The airstrike prompting Salami’s threats is the first deadly strike attributed to Israel to kill an Iranian official since April 1, when an airstrike the Israeli government never claimed, but received the blame for, near the Iranian consulate in Damascus eliminated a top IRGC terrorist, Mohammad Reza Zahedi. Iranian regime officials similarly threatened to attack Israel following the strike, claiming no Israeli embassy in the world was safe from Iranian retribution.
“The shadow of fear and terror looms over the occupied lands, and the Zionists see the specter of death in their dreams every night,” Yahya Rahim Safavi, a senior adviser to Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, proclaimed.
Iran finally struck on April 13, launching a barrage of drones, cruise missiles, and ballistic missiles towards the Israeli homeland. In a stunning military feat, and reportedly with the quiet aid of some neighbors, Israel almost entirely neutralized the bombing.
“99% of the threats launched towards Israeli territory were intercepted – a very significant strategic achievement,” Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, a spokesman for the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), said the next day. Israel claimed to take down all drones and cruise missiles Iran shot in its direction, and the few missiles that got through caused no significant damage.
Some days later, Israel conducted strikes within Iran, targeting areas near Isfahan, where Iran is known to maintain a nuclear facility.
Iran and Israel have largely refrained from targeting each other since April, though the Israeli government remains on high alert of Iranian attack given repeated threats from Tehran to destroy Israel. Khamenei and his regime were especially belligerent in the days following the October 7 attack, threatening “disaster” for the country.
“From the military and intelligence aspects, this defeat is irreparable. It is a devastating earthquake,” Khamenei himself said of the October 7 siege in celebration.
“The region is now a powder keg and any miscalculation, genocide and forced displacement of people in Gaza can have consequences for the region and warmongers alike,” then-Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said in October. “I am warning the US and the Zionist regime that there could be any possibility any moment if they do not immediately stop the crimes against humanity in Gaza.”
The “crimes against humanity” in question were the IDF operations to neutralize Hamas in Gaza, which it controls. The operations continue to this day, seeking to eliminate Hamas terror operations hubs, weapons caches, and other strategic facilities.
Amir-Abdollahian died in a helicopter crash in May alongside Iranian President Raisi and six others.
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.