TEHRAN - Siraj-ul-Haq, leader of Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) Pakistan, has denounced the U.S. move in assassinating General Qassem Soleimani as an oppression against Islam, adding that the blood of this great martyr brought dignity and honor to Muslims around the world.

The Pakistani cleric made the remarks in an interview with IRNA on the sidelines of a meeting with the Secretary General of the World Forum for Ecumenicity of Islamic Schools of Thought Hojjatoleslam Shahriari in Lahore.

According to Siraj-ul-Haq, the tragedy of the assassination of General Soleimani in the territory of an Islamic country is an aggression of foreign forces, which “we condemn and emphasize the support to oppressed Muslim nations.”

He added, “The enemies have taken advantage of the chaos among the Islamic nations and we see the result of these conspiracies in events such as the assassination of the commander of the Qods Force.”

“We need unity and solidarity to prevent terrorist operations and unilateral actions and we must stand by the oppressed,” the Pakistani cleric noted. 

The leader of the Jamaat-e-Islami of Pakistan on Friday in a meeting with Hojjatoleslam Shahriari mentioned the influential role of Tehran and Islamabad in helping solve the problems of the Islamic world and regional crises, especially the situation in Afghanistan.

In an interview with IRNA, Secretary General of the World Forum for Ecumenicity of Islamic Schools of Thought said that the meeting focused on the commonalities of the two neighboring countries and some of the problems facing the Islamic world, especially the issue of Palestine.

General Soleimani was assassinated along with his longtime comrade Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the deputy head of Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF). The top Iranian general was visiting Iraq at the invitation of Iraq’s leader to deliver an Iranian reply to a Saudi message through Iraq. He left Tehran for Baghdad on January 3, 2020, and arrived at midnight at Baghdad airport, where al-Muhandis was waiting to receive him. After a short exchange of greetings, the two men left the airport but as they moved out of the airport in their motorcade, they were targeted with a number of missiles launched by an American drone.

The strike was ordered by then-U.S. President Donald Trump, a dangerous move that brought Iran and the U.S. close to an all-out war. Iran did not let the U.S. go unpunished for its reckless move. Five days after the U.S. strike, Iran launched a military operation codenamed “Operation Martyr Soleimani”, which saw Iran showering the U.S. Ein al-Asad airbase in Iraq’s western governorate of al-Anbar with tens of ground-to-ground missiles. Initially, the U.S. sought to downplay the strike on its airbase. But the Pentagon admittedly announced later that more than 100 U.S. service members have been diagnosed with traumatic brain injury (TBI) stemming from Iran’s missile attack on the airbase.

Following the retaliatory response, Iran announced a new strategy to continue what General Soleimani had assiduously started: expulsion of the U.S. forces from the region. A few days after the assassination of General Soleimani, several Iranian officials announced that real revenge for the late general would be the expulsion of all American troops from the region.

In a statement on the second anniversary of the assassination of General Soleimani, the Iranian Foreign Ministry said that “the prompt and effective action of the Armed Forces of the Islamic Republic of Iran in slapping the American troops stationed at the Ain al-Assad base in Iraq in the face, along with the spiritual effects of the blood of Iranian and Iraqi martyrs, upset the equations and brought about the failure of U.S. regional strategy. The U.S. fleeing from Afghanistan, the beginning of the process of withdrawal from Iraq and the change in the strategy of the U.S. military presence in the geostrategic region of Persian Gulf showcase a small part of such impacts and consequences.”

It added, “Undoubtedly, the criminal act of the United States in martyring general Soleimani is a clear manifestation of a "terrorist attack" that was orchestrated and carried out in an organized manner by the then US government for which the White House is now responsible.”

The foreign ministry noted that the US government bears "definitive international responsibility" for this crime according to international and legal standards.