Donald Trump would be the target of the Iranian government. At least that’s what a senior Iranian military official says, pointing out that Iran is seeking revenge after a 2020 attack.
A senior Iranian military official said Friday night his country is still seeking revenge for Washington’s 2020 ouster of General Qassem Soleimani in hopes of “killing” former US President Donald Trump.
“We hope that we can kill Trump, (former US Secretary of State Mike) Pompeo and (Kenneth) McKenzie (the former chief of US Army Central Command in the Middle East), as well as the military officials who issued the order to kill Soleimani, said General Amirali Hajizadeh to state television.
“We are now able to hit American ships with missiles at a distance of 2,000 km,” said the general, who heads the aerospace forces of the Revolutionary Guards, Iran’s ideological army.
Tense relations between Iran and the United States
The Islamic Republic’s ballistic programs worry Westerners, who accuse the country of wanting to increase the range of its missiles and destabilize the Middle East and Israel, Tehran’s sworn enemy.
On Saturday, state television broadcast images of the launch of a “new Paveh cruise missile with a range of 1,650 km” manufactured by the Revolutionary Guards.
Qassem Soleimani, former head of the Quds Force in charge of the Revolutionary Guards’ external operations, was assassinated in a US raid in Baghdad in January 2020. President Trump said at the time he ordered the strike in response to a series of attacks against the Revolutionary Guards against American interests in Iraq.
Five days later, Iran retaliated by firing missiles at a US airbase in Iraq where US troops were stationed. No US soldiers were killed, but Washington said dozens of people suffered traumatic brain injuries as a result of the blasts.