Iranian Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei announced three days of nation-wide mourning following the death of top military leader Qassim Soleimani on Thursday, calling him a “eminent example of a person trained in Islam,” and threatening retribution for the U.S. attack.
“The loss of our dear General is bitter. The continuing fight & ultimate victory will be more bitter for the murderers & criminals,” Khamenei wrote on Twitter.
Soleimani, responsible for the deaths of hundreds of U.S. troops over the last two decades, ran the Iranian special Quds Force, which the U.S. designated a terror group in 2007. He was killed alongside Iraqi militia commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis by an airstrike at Baghdad airport after President Trump warned Iran and its allies over the multi-day siege of the U.S. embassy in Baghdad.
Iraq’s Prime Minister Adil Abdul Mahdi also reacted to the attack, saying Friday that it was “a dangerous escalation that will light the fuse of a destructive war in Iraq, the region, and the world.”
Mahdi, whose government has support from both the U.S. and Iran, called Soleimani and al-Muhandis as “huge symbols of the victory against terrorists.” With support from Soleimani and Iran, al-Muhandis had previously led the Popular Mobilization Forces,an umbrella network of militias, in assisting Iraqi security forces retake Iraq from ISIS.