Relatives of Iranian general Qassem Soleimani, arrested in the US, where they “lived in luxury”. Marco Rubio's announcement
The niece and great-niece of Iranian general Qassem Soleimani were arrested by US authorities after their permanent resident status was revoked, according to the announcement made on Saturday by the US State Department, the BBC wrote.
Hamideh Soleimani Afshar and her daughter are in the custody of the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) pending removal from the country, State Department head Marco Rubio said in a social media post.
Soleimani, head of the elite Quds Force of Iran's Revolutionary Guards, was killed in 2020 in Iraq in a US airstrike ordered by then-first-term President Donald Trump.
The State Department described Afshar Soleimaini as an “outspoken supporter of the totalitarian and terrorist regime in Iran” who has “propagandized the Iranian regime” on social media.
At the same time, a ban was also issued for Afshar Soleimani's husband. Neither his name nor the name of their daughter is mentioned in the statement.
Afshar Soleimani and her daughter were “living in luxury in the United States,” Marco Rubio said.
Qassem Soleimani, invoked by Trump in a recent speech on Iran
On Wednesday, the US president said Iran would be “perhaps in a much better, stronger position” in the current war if Soleimani was still alive.
“I killed General Qassem Soleimani in my first term. He was an evil genius, a brilliant person, a horrible human being, but the father of the roadside bomb, and he lived a horrible life,” Trump said.
Soleimani, at the time Iran's most powerful general, aged 62, was killed in a US airstrike at the airport in Baghdad, Iraq, on January 3, 2020. As commander of the Quds Force, he spearheaded Iran's military operations in the Middle East.
