Iran has issued an arrest warrant and asked Interpol for help in detaining President Donald Trump and dozens of others it believes carried out the US drone strike in Baghdad that killed Qasem Soleimani, a top Iranian general.
Tehran prosecutor Ali Alqasimehr said Trump and more than 30 others face “murder and terrorism charges”, the semi-official ISNA news agency reports.
Alqasimehr did not identify anyone else sought for the Baghdad attack other than Trump but stressed that Iran would continue to pursue his prosecution even after his presidency ends.
Propaganda stunt
Interpol, based in Lyons, France, said in a statement that its constitution forbade it to undertake “any intervention or activities of a political, military, religious or racial character”.
“Therefore, if or when any such requests were to be sent to the General Secretariat … Interpol would not consider requests of this nature.”
The US chief envoy to Iran, Brian Hook, described the move as a “propaganda stunt”.
Red notice request
Alqasimehr was also quoted as saying Iran had requested that a “red notice” be put out for Trump and the others. Red, the highest-level notice issued by Interpol, seeks the location and arrest of the individual named.
Under a red notice, local officials make the arrests on behalf of the country which requested it. The notices cannot force countries to arrest or extradite suspects but can put government leaders on the spot and limit suspects’ travel.
After receiving a request, Interpol meets by committee and discusses whether or not to share the information with its member states. It has no requirement for making any of the notices public, though some do get published on its website.
Red line
In 2019, Iran and its proxies were accused of orchestrating attacks on the US and its allies. These included the bombing of oil tankers in the Strait of Hormuz, the downing of a US drone that had allegedly violated Iran’s airspace, and drone strikes that destroyed US ally Saudi Arabia’s oil installations.
None of that, however, appeared to have crossed a US red line as much as the rocket attack in December 2019 by a pro-Iran militia group which killed an American contractor at a military base in northern Iraq. Soleimani was killed in Baghdad a week after that attack.
“They had pushed for many years to find a red line and they found a red line as the United States responded vigorously,” McKenzie said.
The US general’s assessment of Iranian activities in the past six months is at odds with the initial fears that many harboured about the potential ramifications of assassinating a powerful Iranian general in a region already mired in turmoil.
Some experts continue to question the validity of the notion that killing Soleimani has enhanced prospects for peace.
