Iran Asks UN General Assembly to Condemn US Assassination of Anti-Terror Commander

The legal department of the Iranian president’s office, in a statement on Saturday, marked the second anniversary of the assassination of General Soleimani.

The statement said that former US president Donald Trump openly claimed responsibility for the heinous crime at the time, adding, “This dangerous move by the US government came while the UN Charter, as a fundamental document and basis of international consensus in the post-War period, prohibits governments from engaging in acts that are detrimental to international peace and security.”

It said the UN General Assembly should “take all legal initiatives within its authority, including the adoption of a resolution condemning the assassination of government and diplomatic officials by (another) government (and) take measures to prevent such crimes in the future”.

The statement also lamented the fact that the US government infringes upon international laws and regulations via its extreme unilateralism while the international community remains silent.

Undoubtedly, it continued, international peace will be even more in danger if the perpetrators of the terrorist attack are free to walk with impunity.

Former Commander of the IRGC Qods Force Lieutenant General Qassem Soleimani, his Iraqi trenchmate Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the second-in-command of Iraq’s PMU, and ten of their deputies were martyred by an armed drone strike as their convoy left Baghdad International Airport on January 3, 2020. The attack was ordered by then US President Donald Trump.

To date, Iran’s chief civilian prosecutor has indicted tens of individuals in connection with the assassination, among them former president Trump, the head of US Central Command General Kenneth McKenzie Jr., and former US Secretaries of State and Defense Mike Pompeo and Mark Esper.

The file remains open to the further addition of individuals that Tehran determines to have played a role in the killing.

Both commanders were highly popular because of their key role in fighting against the ISIL terrorist group in the region, particularly in Iraq and Syria.

Back in January 2020, two days after the assassination, the Iraqi parliament passed a law requiring the Iraqi government to end the presence of the US-led foreign forces in the Arab country.

Last year, Baghdad and Washington reached an agreement on ending the presence of all US combat troops in Iraq by the end of 2021.

The US military declared the end of its combat mission in Iraq this month, but resistance forces remain bent on expelling all American forces, including those who have stayed in the country on the pretext of training Iraqi forces or playing an advisory role.

Since the assassination, Iraqi resistance forces have ramped up pressure on the US military to leave their country, targeting American bases and forces on numerous occasions, at one point pushing the Americans to ask them to “just leave us alone”.

Iran and Iraq in a joint statement earlier this month underlined their determination to identify, prosecute and punish the culprits behind the assassination of General Soleimani and al-Muhandis.

Iran and Iraq have issued a joint statement on an investigation into the “criminal and terrorist” assassination by the US of top anti-terror commanders of the two countries in Baghdad in 2020, Iranian Judiciary Deputy Chief and Secretary-General of Iran's Human Rights Headquarters Kazzem Qaribabadi said.

He added that the statement was issued during the second session of a joint Iran-Iraq committee investigating the murder of General Soleimani and al-Muhandis.

Qaribabadi said that in the statement, Iran and Iraq stressed that the assassinations were a “violation of the rules of international law, including relevant international conventions on the fight against terrorism”.