On second anniversary of Soleimani’s death, Basiji students in Tehran call for response to US

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Students from three of Iran’s top universities have questioned the country’s conduct in responding “proportionally” to the United States over their killing of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) commander Qasem Soleimani two years ago today, calling on the secretary of the Supreme National Security Council to justify the country’s delayed response.

The letter, written by a group of students from the Basij, a paramilitary force and a branch of the IRGC which translates to English as “mobilisation,” was addressed to Ali Shamkhani, the secretary of the Supreme National Security Council and a close aide of the supreme leader, Ali Khamenei. The students called on Shamkhani to attend one of the universities and answer questions about why Tehran has delayed a response that is “proportionate” to the killing of the top general.

General Qasem Soleimani, head of the Quds Force, the foreign operations arm of the IRGC, was killed in a US airstrike on January 3, 2020, alongside Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the top commander of the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF, also known as Hashd al-Shaabi). A number of their bodyguards were also killed in the strike which was ordered by President Donald Trump in response to the constant attacks by IRGC-allied groups on the US embassy in Baghdad and military bases housing coalition and US forces across the country.

The killing stunned the Iranian establishment and their regional allies but was welcomed by the US allies in the region. Iran vowed to retaliate and fired around 12 ballistic missiles at an Iraqi base in the west of the country housing American and other coalition forces on January 8, 2020. No one was killed but over 100 soldiers were diagnosed with traumatic brain injuries.

On the same day the missiles were fired at Americans in Iraq, the IRGC shot down a civilian aircraft, killing all 176 onboard over Tehran. The guards initially refused to acknowledge the incident but video footage and other evidence subsequently forced the guards to own up to their action.

Canada, Britain, Ukraine and Sweden gave an ultimatum to Iran in mid-December, 2021, that it should pay compensation to the citizens of the four countries who were onboard the Ukrainian airliner by January 5. Otherwise, the countries threatened, they would start exploring other options based on international law.

“Two years has passed since the martyrdom of the great commander of IRGC… and sadly a proportionate response has not been given to this hostile crime,” the letter from the students across Tehran’s Shahid Beheshti University, Allameh Tabataba'i University, and The Iran University of Science and Technology read.

“A question being asked again and again by our people is that in retaliation to this inhuman, evil, thuggish crime, why no proportionate response has been given.”

The students also raised questions about why no response has been given to the Israeli government, despite acknowledging their responsibility for the killing of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh-Mahabadi, the director of Research and Innovation at Iran’s ministry of defense just eleven months after the killing of Soleimani.

In the letter the students questioned Iran’s response to Saudi Arabia, a close ally of the US, over the delay in allowing Iran’s ambassador to Yemen, Hassan Irloo, to travel back to Tehran for treatment following contracting coronavirus last month. Following his delayed return to the country, he died in December.

“On the second anniversary… we call on you as the secretary of the Supreme National Security Council to attend the Basiji students gathering and explain at what stage the “severe revenge” dossier is, who is executing it, and why people are not informed about the details?”

Ceremonies were held in Iran and in Iraq to mark the second anniversary of the killing of Soleimani and Muhandis. At the scene of the killing at Baghdad airport, a ceremony was held where Soleimani’s daughter Zeinab thanked the Iraqi people for attending his father’s funeral, and expressed hope that one day they would celebrate the departure of the American forces from Iraq. Protestors chanted "Death to America," with signs in the Baghdad square reading "US terrorism has to end."

In Iran, in the absence of a US embassy since the 1979 hostage crisis, a group of Iranian university students gathered outside the Swiss embassy in Tehran, chanting slogans including “Down with the US,” and “Revenge, revenge.”

Senior Hashd official Faleh al-Fayyad said on Saturday that the killing of Soleimani and Muhandis was "a crime against Iraqi sovereignty". Saeed Khatibzadeh, the spokesperson for Iran’s foreign ministry said in a press conference on Monday that Iran would not rest until the perpetrators and those who ordered the killing of Soleimani were brought to justice.

Iran is currently locked in talks in Vienna with delegations from Britain, France, China, Russia and Germany seeking to return the country to the nuclear deal, also known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), although both sides have expressed frustration at the progress.