Soleimani contributed to terror plots in Delhi: Trump
US President Donald Trump has accused slain Iran Revolutionary Guards Commander General Qasem Soleimani of contributing to terror plots in New Delhi and London. After the killing of the Iranian military leader, Trump addressed the media at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Flordia's Palm Beach, to announce that Soleimani's 'reign of terror' is over.
While addressing the media, the US President said, "Soleimani made the death of innocent people his sick passion, contributing to terrorist plots as far away as New Delhi and London. Soleimani has been perpetrating acts of terror to destabilize the Middle East for the last 20 years. What the United States did yesterday should have been done long ago. A lot of lives would have been saved.
Speaking about the missile strike he ordered to kill Soleimani, he said, "Today we remember and honour the victims of Soleimani's many atrocities and we take comfort in knowing that his reign of terror is over."
However, he did not specify the plots in India. There is a speculation that he may have been referring to a 2012 bombing of Israeli defence attache's wife Tal Yehoshua Koren's car in India.
On February 2012, Israeli Embassy worker and wife of the security attache Alon Yehoshua, Koren was thrown from the car by the blast in New Delhi. She was injured and underwent surgery after the attack. Shrapnel were removed from her spinal cord, liver, and lungs, after undergoing hours of surgery in Primus Hospital.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused Iran for plotting this attack and for a thwarted bombing in Tbilisi, Georgia. However, the New Delhi case not been resolved so far and a conclusive link to Iran has not been made by India.
News reports at that time said that the attack was carried out by Iran in retaliation for the killing of Iranian nuclear scientist Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan in Teheran using a bomb with a magnet attached to his car, allegedly by Israelis.
An Indian journalist, Syed Mohammad Ahmad Kazmi, was arrested on March 6 that year and accused of being a part of a conspiracy to carry out the attack and held under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act.
He was released on bail by the Supreme Court in October on the condition that he does not go abroad.
According to news reports at that time, Delhi police alleged that he had carried out reconnaissance for the Iranians who carried out the attack.
The five persons who carried out the attacks were Iranian members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard who had visited Delhi, police were quoted as saying. They were not arrested although police identified them.
An Iranian major general, Soleimani was the leader of the Quds force of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards. But his name did not figure in the reports at that time on the Indian attack.
In his address on the killing of Soleimani in Iraq on Thursday, Trump said on Friday, "Soleimani was plotting imminent and sinister attacks on American diplomats and military personnel, but we caught him in the act and terminated him."
He listed several alleged attacks directed by Soleimani and carried out by the Quds Force and allied militias.
"For years, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and its ruthless Quds Force -- under Soleimani's leadership -- has targeted, injured, and murdered hundreds of American civilians and servicemen," Trump said.
He blamed Soleimani fro the recent attacks on US targets in Iraq, including rocket strikes that killed an American and injured four American servicemen, as well as the assault on the US embassy in Baghdad earlier this week.
(With inputs from IANS)
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