Iranian President Hasan Rouhani said US President Donald Trump was "nearing the end of his life" and Tehran would continue to exact revenge for the assassination of the late Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani.
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"I've said it before: Trump is like [late Iraqi dictator] Saddam Hussein. Saddam attacked us for eight years and in the end, fell [from power]. Trump imposed an economic embargo on us and will soon be deposed not just from office but from life. The disappearance of the criminal Trump will bring quiet and stability to the region and throughout the world. He perpetrated many crimes but the economic embargo on Iran and the assassination of Qassem Soleimani are crimes we cannot forgive," Rouhani said, Friday.
"The region's nations and the entire Iranian nation will avenge Soleimani's death at a time and place that it sees fit. Trump will go down in history as a despicable man for the crimes he perpetrated and his cruel actions. Soleimani's assassination was an act of cowardice, and it will cause nothing but damage to the enemy," the Iranian president said.
Revolutionary Guards commander Hossein Salami also promised to avenge Soleimani's death.
"We are willing to go down the path of revenge for [the spilling of] Soleimani's blood and liberate the Muslims from the evil West and United States' cultural, political, and economic regime," Salami said at a press conference ahead of a meeting of top Revolutionary Guard officials to mark the one-year anniversary of Soleimani's killing.
A US airstrike killed Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani, head of Iran's elite Quds Force and architect of its regional security apparatus, at Baghdad's international airport in January.
As the head of the Quds, or Jerusalem, Force of Iran's paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, Soleimani led all of its expeditionary forces. Quds Force members have deployed into Syria's long war to support President Bashar Assad, as well as into Iraq in the wake of the 2003 US invasion that toppled dictator Saddam Hussein, a longtime foe of Tehran.
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