On September 13, Politico reported that Iran had been planning to assassinate the American ambassador in South Africa to avenge Soleimani’s death. Iranian officials have repeatedly vowed revenge even though on January 8, 2020, five days after the killing, they fired more than a dozen ballistic missiles at military bases in Iraq hosting US troops. Referring to Soleimani’s killing, Shamkahni said, “The Islamic Republic is determined to take hard revenge…to prevent terrorist acts by America and its agents and force them out of the region.”

Shamkhani, a former commander of the Revolutionary Guards’ navy, told Hamdullah Mohib the visiting national security advisor of the Afghan president that Iran will punish both those who carried out the killing and those who issued the order.

The Secretary of Iran’s National Security Council, Ali Shamkhani has reiterated that the Islamic Republic is determined to take hard revenge for the killing of Qasem Soleimani, the commander of the Qods (Quds) Force who was killed by US missiles in January in Baghdad.

The revenge plan is in process