Iranian news agency threatens Trump with assassination in bizarre video following Soleimani killing

Iran's semi-official Fars news agency published a fabricated video of President Donald Trump's assassination.

2 min read

08 January, 2020

An Iranian news agency published a fake video of President Trump's 'assassination' [Fars/Memri]

An Iranian news agency published a video Monday showing what it describes as the "assassination" of United States President Donald Trump, following the killing of top Iranian commander Qassem Soleimani.

Iran's semi-official Fars news agency broadcast a fabricated video in which President Trump delivers a speech in front of a crowd, while an "assassin" prepares to shoot him.

The assassin looks longingly at an image of the late Soleimani before firing shots at the president which appear to knock him to the ground.

"Hello America! You started the war and we will end it," was published by Fars news agency alongside the video, according to Saudi newsite Mz Mz.

The video appears to manipulate footage from a 2016 Trump rally held in Reno, Nevada, in which security services rushed President Trump off the stage after someone shouted the word "gun".

Soleimani was killed in a US drone strike on Friday. In response, Iran struck the Ain al-Asad air base in western Iraq and a base in Erbil, security sources said early Wednesday.

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"All of our soldiers are safe and only minimal damage was sustained at our military bases. Our great American forces are prepared for anything," President Donald Trump said in a Wednesday address to the nation from the White House.

"Iran appears to be standing down, which is a good thing for all parties concerned and a very good thing for the world. No American or Iraqi lives were lost."

Trump announced the United States would be imposing "additional punishing sanctions" on Iran but made no mention of possible retaliation to Tuesday's missile attacks - seen by experts as a measured first response by Iran to the killing of General Soleimani.

Soleimani led the Quds Force, the extraterritorial branch of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), and had been involved in the creation of the Iraqi Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF) militias as well as militias which propped up Bashar al-Assad's regime in Syria.

The killing of Soleimani has rocked regional politics and plunged Washington and Tehran into a dangerous game of posturing cat and mouse. Soleimani's supporters in the region, including in Iraq, expressed outrage over what they argue is US interference in regional security.

US officials have defended the decision to kill Soleimani -who was considered one of the most powerful people in Iran.

While the White House and Pentagon continued to withhold details of the rationale for Friday's drone strike, Secretary of Defence Mark Esper said Soleimani was planning imminent attacks against US assets.