As the US and Iran trade threats over the future, in the aftermath of a US strike that killed a top Iranian commander Qassem Soleimani, a senior Tehran military official has warned that Iran's response would be a 'military' one against US military targets.
Speaking to CNN, Hassan Dehghan, senior military advisor to the Supreme Leader Seyyed Ali Khamenei, said that "The response for sure will be military and against military sites."
Dehgan added that Iran had not sought war, but that America had started one, and that the Americans should expect an appropriate response. "The only thing that can end this period of war is for the Americans to receive a blow that is equal to the blow they have inflicted. Afterward they should not seek a new cycle".
Following the assassination of Soleimani, US installations across Iraq have been targeted by pro-Iran factions. Late into Saturday, rocket attacks targeted the US embassy in Baghdad.
Dehgan was a former defence minister, and had earlier served with the IRGC air force with the rank of brigadier-general.
His statement came after US President Donald Trump threatened to strike 52 sites of high-level importance and cultural significance, prompting criticism that the president had announced his intention to commit a war crime.
Iran Foreign Minister Javed Zarif said the same in response, "Having committed grave breaches of int'l law in Friday's cowardly assassinations,@realdonaldtrump threatens to commit again new breaches of JUS COGENS; -Targeting cultural sites is a WAR CRIME; -Whether kicking or screaming, end of US malign presence in West Asia has begun."
While the US has justified the extrajudicial killing of Soleimani on the grounds that he was plottingan 'imminent and sinister attacks on American diplomats and American personnel'. In addition, the US had designated the Iran Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a terror outfit in August. However, the act of targeting sites of cultural importance is still considered as a war crime.
Under the rules of war, as determined under the Geneva and Hague conventions, it is prohibited "to commit any acts of hostility directed against the historic monuments, works of art or places of worship which constitute the cultural or spiritual heritage of peoples."
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Soleimani was killed by a US air raid on the Baghdad International Airport on Friday. The commander of Iran's Al-Quds paramilitary forces, Soleimani was instrumental in setting up Iran's regional influence in the aftermath of the Iraq War and Arab Spring. He is reported to have set up proxies to fight the US as well as ISIS over several years of conflict.
A senior Iraqi official, Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, was also killed in the US strike.
On Saturday, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said that the US had made a "grave mistake" by killing Soleimani and that it "would face consequences of this criminal act" not just immediately but for years to come.