The Iranian parliament has unanimously passed a motion designating the United States army and the Pentagon as “terrorist entities” following the killing of Qasem Soleimani, commander of Iranian Quds Force.
Soleimani was killed in a US airstrike at Baghdad International Airport on Friday. The Pentagon said the attack was carried out on the order of President Donald Trump to deter “future Iranian attack plans”.
Reacting, the Iranian leadership pledged that Soleimani’s death will not go unavenged.
Gholamali Abuhamzeh, commander of the guards in the southern province of Kerman in Iran, also said his country had identified at least 35 US targets for retaliatory strikes, while Trump, in turn, threatened that the US would strike 52 Iranian targets, should Iran carry out its threat.
The motion passed at an open parliament session on Tuesday. The parliament also voted for the allocation of 200 million euros ($224 million) from the National Development Fund to the elite Quds Force “to boost their defensive power”.
Under the newly adopted law, the entire US forces and employees of the Pentagon and affiliated organisations, agents and commanders and those who ordered the “martyrdom” of Soleimani are designated as “terrorists”.
“Any aid to these forces, including military, intelligence, financial, technical, service or logistical, will be considered as cooperation in a terrorist act,” the legislation read.
In April 2019, Washington designated Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), of which the Quds Force is a part, as a foreign terrorist organisation.
Tehran responded by designating the US central command as a terrorist organisation and the American government as “a sponsor of terrorism”.