Iran’s Revolutionary Guard (IRGC) says that retaliatory military attacks against US targets for the killing of Qassem Soleimani in 2020 are still viable options.

IRGC spokesman Ramazan Sharif was quoted by Iranian media as saying that “moves such as [the attack on] Ain al-Assad base [in Iraq] are still being considered and “will become operational in due time.”

Five days after Soleimani was killed by a US air strike on January 3, 2020, Iran fired ballistic missiles at the Iraqi base hosting US troops. No Americans were killed but reports at the time spoke of dozens of servicemen receiving concussion because of the strong explosions.

At the time, President Donald trump who ordered the killing said that Soleimani presented an imminent danger to US personnel and interests in the region. He was the commander of Quds Force and Iran's top military and intelligence operative in the Middle East.

Since then, the Islamic Republic has continued threatening revenge for Soleimani, and these threats were repeated during the third anniversary of his killing this week.

Plots were discovered in the United States aimed at assassinating former US National Security Advisor John Bolton and former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

Iran International reported in December that based on documents a hactivist group provided, an IRGC envoy went to Washington January 16, 2022, to carry out the plan, but the IRGC was unaware that an individual hired to kill Bolton in exchange for $300,000 was actually an FBI informant.

In August 2022, the US Justice Department charged a member of the IRGC in absentia with planning to assassinate Bolton.