Iran's president has again vowed to avenge the killing of the country's top general on the third anniversary of his death in a U.S. drone strike.
President Ebrahim Raisi on January 3 told a ceremony marking General Qassem Soleimani’s death that those behind it “should know that retaliation is obvious.”
Since Soleimani was killed on January 3, 2020, in Iraq, he has been hailed as a national icon among supporters of Iran's theocracy. Raisi claimed in his speech that Soleimani defeated “U.S. hegemony” and praised him for his role in leading Iranian-backed forces against the Islamic State extremist group.
Demonstrators who have been taking part in recent anti-government protests over the past four months, however, have expressed their contempt for him, ripping down billboards and burning other images erected in his honor.
The drone strike in which Soleimani was killed was ordered by then-President Donald Trump.
Soleimani was the commander of the Quds Force of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), and the United States held him responsible for the deaths of many of its soldiers in Iraq. His Iraqi lieutenant, Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, was also killed in the same drone strike.
The Iranian Foreign Ministry said earlier on January 3 on Twitter that "the cowardly assassination” of Soleimani failed to achieve its goals.
"Iran continues to play a decisive role; America's footprint in West Asia is getting smaller every day, and the terrorist plot designed by America in our region has failed," the ministry said on January 3 on Twitter.
Iran responded to the killing of Soleimani by launching a barrage of missiles at U.S. bases in Iraq. The retaliatory attack caused no fatalities, but the U.S. military said dozens of its soldiers suffered head injuries.
Amid the heightened tensions in the days following the drone strike, Iranian forces accidentally shot down a Ukrainian passenger jet, killing all 176 people aboard.
Earlier this year the U.S. Justice Department charged a member of the IRGC in connection with an attempted plot to murder former White House national-security adviser John Bolton. The Justice Department said on August 10 that charges were filed against Shahram Poursafi of Tehran.
The Justice Department said Poursafi "attempted to pay individuals in the United States $300,000 to carry out the murder." Iran rejected the charges as "ridiculous and baseless."