Iran’s Quds Force Calls Scientist’s Assassination Handiwork ‘of Arrogant International Thieves’

The Revolutionary Guards’ Quds Force will ally itself with other “guardians of the Islamic homeland” to exact revenge on the “terrorists and their masters” for the murder of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, Commander Brig. Gen. Esmail Ghana has announced.

“The enemy does not dare to wage war against Iran like men. The end of Israel is approaching…This assassination is one of the desperate attempts of the arrogant and international thieves,” Ghani said, his comments cited by local media.

Characterizing Fakhrizadeh as the “pride of the school of Islam” and its efforts to break global monopolies on science and technology, Ghana suggested that the “scientific growth, independence and self-sufficiency of Iran and the Muslim and freedom-loving nations” is what “hinders the realization” of the “nefarious goals” of the Islamic Republic’s enemies. Ghaani, who was appointed chief of the Quds Force, Iran’s elite extraterritorial fighting force, in early January after the US assassination of Gen. Qasem Soleimani, did not specify how the Revolutionary Guard would exact “revenge” for Fakhrizadeh’s killing. On 8 January, five days after Soleimani’s 3 January killing, the Revolutionary Guard lobbed over a dozen ballistic missiles at a pair of US bases in Iraq, leaving over 100 US military personnel with traumatic brain injuries. The Quds Force has also been known to provide training and arms assistance to Baghdad-allied Iraqi militias, which have been accused of carrying out a spate of rocket attacks against American military facilities in Iraq in recent months in a bid to force the US to pull out of the country.