A statue erected to honor slain Iranian commander Qassem Soleimani has been torched by unknown assailants hours after it was unveiled, Iranian media reported Thursday.
Soleimani, who headed the Quds Force, the foreign operations arm of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, was killed on January 3, 2020, in Iraq in a US drone strike at Baghdad airport along with his Iraqi lieutenant and others.
On Wednesday morning, a statue to honor him was unveiled in the southwestern Iranian city of Shahrekord.
But in the evening, it was set on fire, ISNA news agency said, calling it a “shameful act by unknown individuals.”
“This treacherous crime was carried out in the darkness, just like the other crime committed at night at Baghdad airport,” when Soleimani was killed, senior Muslim cleric Mohammad Ali Nekounam said in a statement carried by ISNA.
Iranian authorities have unveiled several sculptures dedicated to Soleimani since his assassination two years ago, and portraits of the late commander dot the landscape across Iran.
State broadcaster IRIB condemned the latest attack as an “insulting” act that comes as Iran marks the second anniversary of Soleimani’s killing, with several events in recent days.
The opposition People’s Mojahedin Organization (Iranian Resistance) said in a statement on its website that “at 9:30 pm on January 5, the heroes of the resistance units set fire to the huge statue of the bloodthirsty monster Qassem Soleimani in the city of Shahrekord.”
This is not the first time that Iranians have burned statues or pictures of senior officials in the Iranian regime. Iranian protesters burned pictures of Soleimani days after his death.
The Iranian people despised Soleimani for his active and direct role in the bloody suppression of several nationwide uprisings in Iran.
