Hizbollah chief orders ‘resistance fighters’ around the world to avenge death of Iranian commander Soleimani

From the Telegraph

The leader of Iran-backed militia Hizbollah in Lebanon has issued a call to “resistance fighters” around the world to punish those responsibility for the killing of top Iranian commander Qassem Soleimani.

Hassan Nasrallah, in a speech delivered on Friday morning, said he would “continue on the path” of Soleimani, who headed the external operations Quds Force for the Revolutionary Guard Corp.

“Meting out the appropriate punishment to these criminal assassins… will be the responsibility and task of all resistance fighters worldwide,” he said.

Soleimani, considered to be one of the most powerful and influential figures in the Islamic Republic, was killed alongside Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the deputy head of the Hashed al-Shaabi paramilitary force in Iraq, in a US air strike near Baghdad airport overnight.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, vowed to take “severe revenge” and led an urgent meeting of the National Security Council in Tehran.”With him gone, God willing, his work and his path will not be stopped, but severe revenge awaits the criminals who bloodied their foul hands with his blood and other martyrs’ in last night’s incident,” he wrote on his Twitter account.

The US embassy in Baghdad urged American citizens in Iraq on Friday to “depart immediately”, for fear of fallout … Mark Esper , US Defence Secretary, claimed the attacks had been defensive and that Soleimani had been “actively developing plans to attack American diplomats and service members in Iraq and throughout the region”.

The strike followed an unprecedented war of words between Mr Trump and the Ayatollah.

Mr Trump had earlier this week ordered hundreds of US troops to the region after thousands of angry supporters of an Iranian-backed militia chanting “Death to America” besieged the mission on Tuesday, forcing staffers to take refuge in a safe room.

“They will pay a very BIG PRICE!,” he said. “This is not a Warning, it is a Threat. Happy New Year!”

Khamenei responded by saying: “You can’t do anything.”