A terrifying message threats to fly a plane into the Capitol to 'avenge' the death of Soleimani
Shafaq News/ A terrifying message threatening to fly a plane into the Capitol building to avenge the death of Iranian general Qassem Soleimani was broadcast on air traffic control frequencies on Monday afternoon.
The FBI and FAA are investigating the message that was heard by multiple air traffic controllers in New York, according to CBS.
The threat, delivered via a digitized voice, said: 'We are flying into the Capitol Wednesday. Soleimani will be avenged.'
Congress plans to confirm Joe Biden's win at the Capitol on Wednesday.
The threat was made almost one year to the day after the death of Soleimani, who was killed in a U.S. drone strike ordered by President Donald Trump.
It is not yet clear who sent the message and the threat is not believed to credible, CBS reports, but the Pentagon and other agencies were briefed on Tuesday.
CBS states that air traffic controllers were told today to report any unusual activity that may suggest that a plane is deviating from the flight path they were given.
Soleimani was killed in a missile fired from a USAF MQ-9 Reaper aircraft along with Iraqi commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis as their motorcade pulled out of Baghdad airport on January 3, 2020.
The killing of the second-most powerful man in Iran came at the height of tensions in the region, with numerous assaults on US personnel and on the embassy in the Iraqi capital, as well as the shooting down of a US drone over the Persian Gulf and the impounding of oil tankers.
In June 2020, a prosecutor in Tehran issued an arrest warrant for Trump and dozens of other Washington officials, saying that they were responsible for 'murder and terrorism.'
Earlier on Tuesday, Iranian officials issued a second arrest warrant for Trump over the drone stroke that killed the top general.
Trump along with 47 other US officials were the subject of an Interpol 'red notice' request for their involvement in the drone strike in Baghdad last year.
On Tuesday, Trump also hit Iran with new sanctions as he seeks to deprive the county of revenues as his presidential term winds down.
Iran is a decades-long American nemesis that has been a target of blame for much of the Middle East's instability.
In the past week alone, Trump's team has dispatched B-52 bombers to the Persian Gulf in response to alleged Iranian attack planning and reversed an order to bring home the USS Nimitz, the only U.S. aircraft carrier in the region.
On Monday, Iran not only announced it had resumed advanced uranium enrichment in violation of the 2015 nuclear deal but also seized a South Korean-flagged oil tanker and its crew.
Iran said the ship was seized for 'repeated infringement of maritime environmental laws', but it comes amid Iranian demands for South Korea to release $7billion in assets that were frozen because of US sanctions.
