Leader: US’ Superpower Image Shattered by IRGC, E3 Unable to Bring Iran to Its Knees

Addressing a large and fervent congregation of the people in Tehran on Friday, Ayatollah Khamenei said, “The day the IRGC missiles attacked the US bases was a major blow to the US as it broke its image as a superpower.”

The Supreme Leader, meantime, pointed to the efforts by the E3 countries to convince the United Nations to impose new sanctions on the Islamic Republic, and said, “The European signatories are serving the US interests and cannot bring the Iranian nation to its knees.”

He made the remarks during his sermon delivered at the Friday Prayers attended by a huge number of people at Imam Khomeini Mosalla (prayers ground) in the capital.

This was the first time over the past eight years that Ayatollah Khamenei led the prayers.

The Supreme Leader noted that one of the other measures to overshadow Iran’s strong response to the Global Arrogance was a statement by the European signatories that warned to bring back UN sanctions.

“Germany, France, UK provided Saddam with weapons during the war against Iran and that the European countries are serving the US interests,” he added.

Ayatollah Khamenei, meantime, described the Europeans behind the negotiating table as those with an iron fist in a velvet glove.

Ayatollah Khamenei then read a statement in Arabic, addressing the Iraqi nation. He stressed that heavy efforts are underway to drive a wedge between the Iranian and Iraqi nations.

“The Zionist news and media propaganda machine in the days before and after the assassination made every effort to link the name of the grand martyred warrior with terrorism,” he said.

The Supreme Leader reiterated that the US president and secretary of state focused on this notion and the Zionist news machine all across the world repeated the same allegations but the Almighty changed things to just the opposite of what they wanted so that people not just in Iran but in other countries came out in reverence of the martyred Iranian commander and set the US and Zionist regime flags ablaze.

The Supreme Leader said that Iran experienced two weeks of extraordinary happenings but was successful in foiling the plots by the Zionist media who tried to distort realities about the assassination of the General Soleimani.

He hailed the massive turnout of the Iranian nation in the funeral procession for General Soleimani, and said it marked a day when millions of people in Iran and hundreds of thousands in Iraq and some other countries took to streets to register the biggest public ceremony in the world to their names.

“The day when IRGC’s missiles hit the US base is another day of God. These two days are turning points in the history and are not ordinary days,” the Supreme Leader said.

Ayatollah Khamenei said that a force of a country was able to slap the biggest bullying power in the face reveals the powerful hand of God.

“American clowns claim they are standing behind Iranians but they all lie,” he said, adding that American officials only seek to put their dagger inside the body the Iranian nation. “Missiles fired at the US base revealed the Iranian nation’s true feeling towards the US.”

The Supreme Leader noted that the horrible tragedy of the Ukrainian plane truly saddened the Iranian nation but enemies sought to overshadow martyrdom of the Resistance Front commanders with the tragic incident.

“The enemy became so happy with the unintentional downing of the plane because they thought that they had found a pretext to destroy Iran’s face but they will certainly fail,” Ayatollah Khamenei added.

The Supreme Leader once again offered condolences to the families of the victims of the Ukrainian plane incident.

On January 8, the IRGC Aerospace Force started heavy ballistic missile attacks on US Ein Al-Assad airbase in Southwestern Iraq near the border with Syria and a US operated airbase in Erbil in retaliation for the US assassination of IRGC Qods Force Commander Lieutenant General Qassem Soleimani.

Ein Al-Assad is an airbase with a 4km runway at 188m altitude from sea levels, which is the main and the largest US airbase in Iraq. Early reports said the radar systems and missile defense shields in Ein Al-Assad failed to operate and intercept the Iranian missiles. Unofficial reports said the US army’s central radar systems at Ein Al-Assad had been jammed by electronic warfare.

The second IRGC reprisal attack targeted a US military base near Erbil airport in Iraqi Kurdistan Region in the second leg of “Martyr Soleimani” reprisal operation.

Iraq said the attacks had not taken any toll from its army men stationed at these two bases. The US army had blocked entrance into Ein Al-Assad to everyone, including the Iraqi army.

It was the first direct attack on the US army ever since world war two.

The IRGC officials said none of the missiles had been intercepted.

A Boeing 737 plane carrying 176 passengers and crew, mostly Iranians, crashed shortly after takeoff from Imam Khomeini Airport in Tehran last Wednesday, leaving no survivors. Tehran has announced that the jet was mistakenly shot down amid fears of war with the United States.

A Ukrainian commission flew to Tehran on the day of the crash, and experts started working on the site on the next day.