TEHERAN－Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi warned on Monday that Iran would avenge the United States' killing of Iranian general Qassem Soleimani if those behind the "criminal act "are not prosecuted.

Raisi made the remarks in an address to a large gathering in the Imam Khomeini Mosalla, an important mosque in the capital Teheran, to mark the second anniversary of Soleimani's assassination, according to the Iranian presidency's website.

The Iranian leader said former US president Donald Trump and his secretary of state Mike Pompeo must be "prosecuted for their criminal activity" through a fair mechanism and be punished.

He said that Soleimani, through his death, had become a "culture, path, and school of thought". The president added that a school of thought cannot be obliterated by a missile or an act of terror.

Raisi said Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was correct in saying that "martyr Soleimani" is more dangerous to the enemy than "general Soleimani", because more people in the mold of Soleimani will rise in the future.

Drone strike

Soleimani, commander of the Quds Force of Iran's Islamic Revolution Guards Corps, or IRGC, was assassinated along with his companions in a US drone strike near Baghdad International Airport on Jan 3, 2020.

Five days later, in a military operation code-named Operation Martyr Soleimani, the IRGC launched a volley of ballistic missiles at the Ain al-Asad air base in Iraq's western province of Anbar.

Iran has called Soleimani's assassination state terrorism and vowed to put an end to the US military's presence in the region as its ultimate revenge, while urging neighboring Iraq to expel US forces from the Arab country's soil.

Days after the assassination, the US told the United Nations that the killing was an act of self-defense. The then US attorney general William Barr said Trump clearly had the authority to kill Soleimani and the general was a "legitimate military target".

Iranian judicial officials have communicated with authorities in nine countries after identifying 127 suspects in the case, including 74 US nationals, Prosecutor-General Mohammad Jafar Montazeri told state television.

Hundreds of supporters of Iran-backed militia groups gathered on Sunday at Baghdad International Airport to mark the anniversary of Soleimani's death and chanted anti-US slogans.

Xinhua - Agencies