Soleimani, head of the Quds Force, the foreign operations arm of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), was killed in a US airstrike near Baghdad International Airport on January 3, 2020, alongside al-Muhandis, deputy chief of the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF).
The strike was ordered by former US 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.
Members and supporters of the Islamic Resistance in Iraq have decided to hold a seven-day-long commemorative ceremony in Baghdad on the fourth anniversary of the assassination of the two Shiite military leaders.
"We are calling on the Iraqi government to make a bold decision to expel the foreign and American forces. The Islamic Resistance can take matters into its own hands to make justice prevail over injustice," Shahid al-Dawoodi, assistant head of the PMF Operations in Nineveh Province, told Rudaw on Wednesday.
The Islamic Resistance in Iraq, a network of shadow Iraqi militia groups backed by Iran and affiliated with the IRGC, has claimed responsibility for most of the recent attacks on US troops in Iraq and Syria.
"The youth of the Resistance will not sit idly by. The resistance has all the rights to respond and target American bases wherever they are. This is a legitimate right," said Abu Zayn al-Abdin, commander of the PMF’s Brigade 28.
Radha Mohammed, another Shiite military leader, echoed the sentiment that they will continue attacking US interests in Iraq until American troops are gone and they avenge the assassination of Soleimani and Muhandis.
"We will take revenge. The PMF and all the other Iraqi armed forces will together defend the security of Iraq," Mohammed, commander of the PMF’s Brigade 25, said.
Iranians and the Iraqi Shiite community have begun commemorating the fourth anniversary of the assassination of Soleimani and Mohandis since Wednesday
Over 80 people were killed and nearly 285 injured after two explosions occurred in southeastern Iran’s Kerman province, near the cemetery where Soleimani is buried, as thousands held a commemorative ceremony on the fourth anniversary of his assassination.
.jpg&w=3840&q=75)
