(TEHRAN) A senior Iranian military official said Friday evening that his country was still seeking revenge for Washington’s elimination of General Qassem Soleimani in 2020, hoping “to be able to kill” former US President Donald Trump.
“We hope we can kill Trump, [l’ancien secrétaire d’État américain Mike] Pompeo and [Kenneth] McKenzie [l’ancien chef du commandement central de l’armée américaine au Moyen-Orient]as well as the military officials who gave the order to assassinate Soleimani,” General Amirali Hajizadeh told television.
“We are now able to hit American ships at a distance of 2000 km” with missiles, said the general who heads the Aerospace Force of the Revolutionary Guards, Iran’s ideological army.
The ballistic programs of the Islamic Republic worry Westerners who accuse the country of wanting to increase the range of its missiles and destabilize the Middle East and Israel, sworn enemy of Tehran.
On Saturday, state television broadcast images of a “new Paveh cruise missile with a range of 1,650 km”, manufactured by the Revolutionary Guards.
Former head of the Quds Force, in charge of the Revolutionary Guards’ external operations, Qassem Soleimani was assassinated in Baghdad in an American raid in January 2020.
President Trump said at the time that he ordered the strike in response to a number of attacks on US interests in Iraq.
Five days later, Iran retaliated by firing missiles at a US airbase in Iraq that housed US troops. No US soldiers were killed, but Washington said dozens of people suffered traumatic brain injuries as a result of the blasts.