Near Baghdad International Airport in Iraq on January 3, 2020 a United States drone strike ordered by U.S. President Trump killed Major-General Qasem Soleimani, a leading officer of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps and its Quds Force, a division responsible for extraterritorial military and clandestine operations aka state-sponsored terrorism.
For instance, Iran had meddled in Iraqi politics for years, “The Iraq cables” published by The Intercept showed. Add to this Iran’s support for the Assad regime in Syria, Lebanon’s Shiite movement Hezbollah and the Houthi rebels in Yemen.
In January, Trump claimed that Qasem Soleimani was responsible for the deaths of hundreds of American troops and was planning additional, imminent attacks. On January 8, Iran retaliated by firing ballistic missiles at Iraqi military bases housing U.S. forces, without killing American soldiers. The assumption back then was that Iraq had to respond but did not want to further escalate the conflict. Hence no American casualties as a result of the Iranian attacks on military bases in Iraq.
In Tehran aka Teheran on June 29, 2020 in a late response to the Soleimani killing, the Iranian prosecutor Ali Alqasimehr issued arrest warrants. He said President Trump and 35 other people involved faced murder and terrorism charges. Ali Alqasimehr said he had asked Interpol to arrest the 36.
The Iranian Mehr news agency reported the words of the Iranian prosecutor Ali Alqasimehr as follows: “About 36 individuals have been identified in connection with the assassination of Hajj Qasem. They supervised, acted upon, and ordered [the killing]. This includes political and military officials from the U.S. as well as other countries, for whom the judiciary has issued arrest warrants and the Interpol has issued Red Notices.”
BBC reported that the Iranian prosecutor added that Trump’s arrest would be sought even after his presidency had ended. The Iranian Isna news agency communicated that Deputy Foreign Minister Mohsen Baharvand said Iran’s judiciary would issue an indictment for those responsible for the attack on General Ali Soleimani. He was hoping to identify the drone operators and added: “Iran will not stop its efforts until these people are brought to justice.”
An Interpol Red Notice is a request to law enforcement worldwide to locate and provisionally arrest a person pending extradition, surrender or similar legal action. It is not an international arrest warrant. According to the BBC report, Interpol said it would not consider the Iranian request. The U.S. special representative for Iran Brian Hook: “Our assessment is that Interpol does not intervene and issue Red Notices that are based on a political nature… This has nothing to do with national security, international peace or promoting stability… It is a propaganda stunt that no-one takes seriously.”
Interpol’s constitution clearly states that it is “strictly forbidden for the organisation to undertake any intervention or activities of a political, military, religious or racial character.”
Around the world, including Europe, more than once, Iran’s religious regime killed and tried to kill people hostile to the Islamic Republic — and largely got away with it. Currently in the news is once again for instance the 1990 murder in Coppet, Switzerland, of Kazem Rajavi. He was a former oppositional leader in Iran and, at the moment of his killing, the leader of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI). Furthermore, he was the brother of the historic leader of the People’s Mujahedin in Iran, Moussad Rajavi.
The pseudo-elections in Iran have been a farce since the creation of the Islamic Republic, be it the 2009 “election” under President Ahmedinejad or the 2016 “election” under the “moderate” President Rohani, to name just two. We have stopped reporting on Iranian “elections” since they are pure propaganda by a dictatorship that pre-selects the candidates up for “election”. There is no real opposition in Iran. Those forces have been killed, are in prison, otherwise silenced, in “inner emigartion” or in exile.
The nuclear deal with Iran negociated by U.S. President Obama and EU nations was shady. In return for a (temporary) end to Iran’s nuclear weapon ambitions, it would have given the religious regime in Tehran additional billions in oil money to further increase its influence abroad, if necessary through more state-sponsored terrorism (which Iran never promised to end).
The photo shows Qasem Soleimani with Order of Zolfaghar. Photo: March 11, 2019. Source: https://farsi.khamenei.ir/photo-album?id=41944#i . “All Content by Khamenei.ir is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.” The photo can also be found under: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Qasem_Soleimani_with_Zolfaghar_Order.jpg
Article added on July 1, 2020 at 08:26 German time.
