The United States government believes that Iran is still exploring ways to carry out revenge for the 2020 assassination of IRGC Major General Qasem Soleimani, including assassinating American officials, according to a June 2022 intelligence assessment by the National Counterterrorism Center that was obtained by Yahoo.
According the the report, “The Iranian regime is waging a multipronged campaign — including threats of lethal action, international legal maneuvering, and the issuance of Iranian arrest warrants and sanctions — against select US officials to avenge the death of IRGC-QF Commander Soleimani in January 2020, raising the threat at home and abroad for those Iran views as responsible for the killing.”
“Since January 2021, Tehran has publicly expressed a willingness to conduct lethal operations inside the United States and has consistently identified former President Donald Trump, former Secretary of State Michael Pompeo, and former CENTCOM Commander General Kenneth McKenzie as among its priority targets for retribution,” the report added. “Iran would probably view the killing or prosecution of a US official it considers equivalent in rank and stature to Soleimani or responsible for his death as successful retaliatory actions.”
While testifying in front of the Senate Armed Services Committee back in May, United States Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines stated that Iran is still trying to “seek revenge” against the United States, explaining that “A fair amount of their motivation in this scenario we assess to be in relation to Soleimani as part of their sort of efforts for revenge, and is a particularly challenging area, I think, to deter them from action in this space.”
Since the assassination, Iran has refused to give up its ambitions of seeking revenge against U.S. officials involved with the strike, including former President Donald Trump.
This January, Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi vowed “revenge” if Trump is not criminally tried in court over the assassination of SoleimaniS. While speaking during during commemorations on the two year anniversary of Soelimani’s death, Raisi stated “If Trump and [former Secretary of State Mike] Pompeo are not tried in a fair court for the criminal act of assassinating General Soleimani, Muslims will take our martyr’s revenge,” adding “The aggressor, murderer and main culprit – the then president of the United States – must be tried and judged under the law of retribution, and God’s ruling must be carried out against him.” Iran has previously attempted to issue an international warrant for Trump’s arrest over the killing in January 2021 and has called on the UN to take action, but nothing has happened.
Threats have become routine, such as the release of a video threatening to drone strike Trump at Mar-A-Lago, stating “revenge is definite.”While no “revenge” has taken place yet, other than routine attacks against American forces in Iraq and Syria, there have been other threats made against former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, South Africa Ambassador Lana Marks, former National Security Advisor John Bolton, and Special Envoy to Iran Brian Hook.
