Tasnim � A top military aide to the Leader of the Islamic Revolution blamed the plot to assassinate top Iranian commander Lt. General Qassem Soleimani on the US and Israeli spy agencies.

In comments at a gathering of Iranian veterans on Thursday, Major General Yahya Rahim Safavi said the �international network of state-sponsored terrorism, the US intelligence services, and the Zionist regime�s Mossad� have masterminded and carried out the plot to assassinate Lt. General Soleimani with their wrong calculations and assessment.

The assassination of the popular Iranian commander and Iraq�s Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis reveals the �strategic, political, and security defeat of the United States and its allies in the face of the axis of resistance in West Asia,� he added.

�The stupid US president, the criminal US state secretary, and the terrorist American military forces have now reached a dead end after the (failed) sanctions and pressures against the oppressed Iranian nation over the past recent years, and have resorted to a cowardly and terrorist operation in defiance of international norms and regulations,� Rahim Safavi deplored.

General Soleimani, the deputy head of Iraq�s Hashd al-Sha�abi (PMU), and a number of their entourage were killed in a strike by American drones near Baghdad International Airport in the early hours of January 3.

The White House and the Pentagon confirmed the assassination of General Soleimani in Iraq, saying the attack was carried out at the direction of US President Donald Trump.