Iranian Parliament Passes Bill Designating Terrorist Status To All American Forces

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Iranian Parliament Passes Bill Designating Terrorist Status To All American Forces
Wearing the uniform of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, lawmakers chant slogans during an open session of parliament in Tehran, Iran, Tuesday, April 9, 2019. Chanting "Death to America," Iranian lawmakers convened an open session of parliament Tuesday following the White House's decision to designate Iran's elite paramilitary Revolutionary Guard a foreign terrorist organization. (AP Photo/Hamidreza Rahel/ICANA)

Iran’s parliament passed a bill on Tuesday designating all United States forces ‘terrorists’ over the killing of a top Iranian military commander in an America airstrike last week, according to Daily Mail UK.

Qasem Soleimani, head of the Revolutionary Guards’ foreign operations arm, was killed in a US drone strike outside Baghdad airport, Iraq, on Friday, ratcheting up tensions between the arch-foes.

Under the newly adopted bill, all US forces and employees of the Pentagon and affiliated organisations, agents and commanders and those who ordered the ‘martyrdom’ of Soleimani were designated as terrorists.

“Any aid to these forces, including military, intelligence, financial, technical, service or logistical, will be considered as co-operation in a terrorist act,” the Iranian parliament said.

Lawmakers also voted to bolster by £170m the coffers of the Quds Force – the foreign operations arm of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards that was headed by Soleimani.

The bill was an amended version of a law adopted in April last year that declared the United States a ‘state sponsor of terrorism’ and its forces in the region ‘terror groups’.

Iran’s top security body, the Supreme National Security Council, said that the blacklisting came after the US designated Iran’s Revolutionary Guards a ‘terrorist organisation’.