‘Live in Fear Liar’: Soleimani’s Daughter Blasts Pompeo Over New Tale on Why US Murdered Her Dad

The Trump administration began backpeddling on its justifications for killing the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Force commander almost immediately after his January 2020 assassination, admitting that he posed no immediate threat. Iran has vowed to extract vengeance over the anti-terror commander’s slaying.

Zainab Soleimani, daughter of the late Qasem Soleimani, has blasted Mike Pompeo’s latest attempt to justify the drone strike killing of her father, calling the former secretary of state a “liar” and suggesting he deserves to live in fear for his life.

“Pompeo whines about Iran on Saudi TV. Home of 9/11 plotters,” Zainab tweeted on Friday night, referring to the former secretary of state’s interview with Al-Arabiya, published earlier in the day.

pompeo whines about Iran on Saudi TV. Home of 9/11 plotters.

Jake Sullivan said Al-Qaeda "is on our side in Syria," but Soleimani crushed the terrorists.

Iraq's Adil Abdul Mahdi said he & dad were to meet that morning to explore regional de-escalation.

Live in fear liar. pic.twitter.com/oYgdNOCbTI

— zainab soleimani |زینب سلیمانی (@zainab_soIamane) June 17, 2022

Pointing out that Biden National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan had once openly admitted in a leaked 2012 email that al-Qaeda was “on our side in Syria,” Zainab recalled how her father, on the other hand, had “crushed the terrorists.”

“Iraq’s [former prime minister] Adil Abdul-Mahdi said he and dad were to meet [the morning of the assassination] to explore regional de-escalation. Live in fear liar,” Mrs. Soleimani wrote, accompanying the tweet with an image of Pompeo in a birdcage against the backdrop of an American flag with shoeprints on it and the hashtag #LIVEINFEAR.

In his interview with Al-Arabiya on Friday, Pompeo accused Soleimani of plotting “to kill another 500 Americans,” and said that the White House decided to act to “take down that plot.”

“It was a project that we had been engaged in continuously and then we had this opportunity to stop what was an imminent attack on US resources, US assets, US people and…the president made the decision to just do that,” the former secretary of state said.

Calling “the Iranian regime” a collection of “evil theocrats” plotting to destroy Israel and the US, Pompeo slammed the Biden administration for negotiating the possible US return to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action nuclear deal. “We ought not be negotiating to figure out how much money to give them in exchange for an ephemeral promise for just a moment to slow down their enrichment and weapons programme,” he said.

Soleimani and nine of his comrades including Iraqi Popular Mobilization Unit deputy commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis were killed in a US drone strike on 3 January 2020 outside Baghdad International Airport. Soleimani was in the country on a diplomatic mission aimed at cooling regional tensions.

Tehran has repeatedly vowed to extract justice for Soleimani’s killers, but has so far refrained from tit-for-tat killings, saying it could not find an American military commander or political leader who is equally valuable.

In January, Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi called for Donald Trump, “the main violator and murderer and criminal,” to be “put on trial and punished” for Soleimani’s assassination.

Before his death, Soleimani served as commander of the IRGC Quds Force – an elite formation responsible for Iranian military operations abroad. He garnered a reputation for fighting terrorists across Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria, and enjoyed widespread popularity across the Middle East among countries antagonistic to the US and Israel, including their respective Shia and Muslim, Kurd and Christian communities.

US officials never provided specific intelligence justifying the Soleimani assassination, although Trump has repeatedly boasted about how he “got” the commander and comparing him to the late al-Qaeda* leader Osama bin Laden and dead Daesh* chief Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

The Trump administration initially claimed Soleimani was killed over specific plots relating to “imminent and sinister attacks on American diplomats and military personnel,” and blamed him for a deadly December 2019 rocket attack on a US military base in Kirkuk, Iraq, and the 31 December 2019 attempt to storm the US Embassy in Baghdad. Iraqi intelligence later determined that the Kirkuk attack was likely carried out by Daesh. Washington eventually changed its story, admitting there was “no specific intelligence” pointing to any imminent threats from Soleimani, but continuing to characterize him as a “noted terrorist” who said “bad things” about the US.

In July 2020, Pompeo said the assassination was aimed at “deterring” Iran from attacks on the US and US interests, and at “degrading” the capabilities of the Quds Force.

Soleimani’s death sparked a chain of events which ultimately forced the US to reduce its presence in Iraq and hand the country’s bases back over to the Iraqi government. The US formally ended its combat mission in the country in December 2021, although thousands of troops remain in the country on a so-called “training, advising, assisting and intelligence-sharing role.” Some Iraqi political factions and militias have warned that they will not rest until the last US military boot leaves their country’s soil.

* Terrorist groups outlawed in Russia and many other countries.