The most senior figure in Iran’s armed forces threatened Thursday that his country will soon seek even heavier revenge against the US, following a recent barrage of missiles fired at American forces stationed at two bases in Iraq, the Iranian Tasnim news agency reported.
The report attributed the remarks to the “chief of general staff,” saying the commander had warned “the regime that will impose a more severe revenge on the enemy in the near future.”
Iran’s chief of general staff is Major-General Mohammad Bagheri, a member of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
On Wednesday Iran fired over a dozen missiles at US bases in Iraq. The missiles were fired in response to the American killing last week of senior military IRGC commander Qassem Soleimani.
Iran claimed 80 US troops were killed in the strikes, and warned that it could strike next at Israel; the US said there were no casualties.
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, speaking on Wednesday, said the overnight strike was not necessarily the totality of Iran’s response.
“Last night they received a slap,” Khamenei said. “These military actions are not sufficient (for revenge). What is important is that the corrupt presence of America in this region comes to an end.”
A senior commander in Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps warned recently that Tel Aviv could also be targeted, while a former head of the IRGC threatened to turn Israeli cities “to dust” if the US attacks targets in Iran.
Iran, for days, had promised to respond forcefully to Soleimani’s killing, but its limited strike on two bases — one in the northern Iraqi city in Irbil and the other at Ain al-Asad in western Iraq — appeared to signal that it was also uninterested in a wider clash with the US.
After the missile strikes, Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif tweeted that the country had “concluded proportionate measures in self-defense.”
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