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US assassination of Soleimani ‘intentional provocation’ to draw Iran into war: Analyst

Daniel Kovalik, an academic at the University of Pittsburgh

The US administration has been trying to draw Iran into a greater conflict through “intentional provocations” by the assassination of the country’s top anti-terror commander Lieutenant General Qassem Soleimani as well as a number of nuclear scientists, an American author and political analyst says.

Daniel Kovalik, an academic at the University of Pittsburgh, made the remarks in a phone interview with Press TV while commenting on Iran’s determination not to allow those behind the targeted killing of the country’s legendary commander to evade punishment.

The Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman told a virtual news conference in Tehran earlier in the week that, “We will not allow the martyr’s blood to go to waste and those who did it escape punishment.”

Saeed Khatibzadeh underlined that the Islamic Republic has ceaselessly pursued this matter and will keep doing so through the international channels.

The US military assassinated General Soleimani, the commander of the Quds Force of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC), along with Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, deputy head of Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Units (PMU), and their companions by targeting their vehicle outside Baghdad International Airport on January 3 last year.

The cowardly act of terror was carried out under the direction of US President Donald Trump, with the Pentagon taking responsibility for the strike.

In yet another act of terror in late November, prominent Iranian nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh was targeted in a multi-pronged terrorist attack by a number of assailants in Absard city of Tehran Province’s Damavand County.

“Well of course this is not a new tactic,” Kovalik told Press TV. “The CIA in particular has engaged in targeted assassinations really from its very beginnings, though it does seem like with Iran there is an acceleration of this tactic right now with the killing of Soleimani and of course, the nuclear scientist a few weeks ago.”

The academic said, “It's very clear that it's really not about eliminating these particular people but it's about trying to provoke Iran into doing something that might in the minds of the West justify a war.”

Kovalik underlined in the phone interview that Iran would not let those behind such assassinations get away unpunished but would also avoid a conflict as these terrorist moves are intentional provocations by the US.

“I think Iran is in a difficult spot; I mean they can't allow these things to happen to them, to be done to them with impunity, without reacting. At the same time, they don't want to overreact because again they know that these are intentional provocations to draw them into a greater conflict which Iran, of course, does not want,” he said.

Both General Soleimani and Muhandis were viewed by the world's freedom-seeking people as heroes who risked their lives taking on Daesh, the world’s most notorious terrorist group, on the battlefield. They played a key part in defeating the terror outfit.

Iran unleashed a barrage of missiles on a US military base in Iraq on January 8 as part of its revenge for the assassination. US positions in Iraq have since been targeted several times.

Recently, Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei said revenge for the Iranian general was certain and would be exacted at the right time.

Iran has also issued an arrest warrant and asked Interpol for help in detaining the US president, who ordered the assassination, and several other US military and political leaders behind the strike.


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