TEHRAN -- Iranian Foreign 
Minister Abbas Araghchi says the Israeli assassination of Brigadier General Abbas Nilforushan, the Islamic Revolution Guard Corps (IRGC)’s deputy commander for operations, will not go unanswered.
The IRGC said in a statement on Sunday that General Nilforushan was martyred in an Israeli airstrike on Friday in Beirut alongside Hezbollah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah.
“This vicious and cowardly act is another clear sign of the terrorist and criminal nature of the Zionist regime and its well-known supporters,” Araghchi said in a letter to IRGC chief Major General Hussein Salami.
“Without a doubt, this horrible crime of the aggressor Zionist regime will not go unanswered,” he asserted, pledging that Iran’s diplomatic apparatus will use all its political, diplomatic, legal and international capacities to pursue “the criminals and their supporters.”
Araghchi extended his condolences, as well as congratulations, to Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei, General Salami, and the Iranian nation over the martyrdom of General Nilforushan.
The martyred general had a brilliant record of sincere endeavors in eight years of Iraq’s war of aggression against Iran and aiding the resistance front against terrorism and Zionism, Araghchi added.
Separately, the minister said Nasrallah’s martyrdom will invigorate the Axis of Resistance.
“The blood of this great man will further strengthen the already robust resistance,” he said during a telephone conversation with his Lebanese counterpart Abdallah Rashid Bou Habib.
Araghchi hailed Nasrallah as a “courageous personality and an influential scholar,” who served an unparalleled role in stabilizing and developing the school of resistance against the oppressive and occupying Zionist regime.
Araghchi said Nasrallah’s martyrdom is a great loss for the people of Lebanon, the region, and the world. His assassination, the minister said, was a “cowardly” and “bestial” war crime that featured egregious violation of Lebanon’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.
Araghchi laid emphasis on the need for informing the international public opinion about the “ignominious atrocity” and documenting it at international and legal organizations.
The Islamic Republic’s diplomatic apparatus at home and abroad is ready to help communicate the various aspects of this “sinister crime” as well as the aspects of the martyr’s significant personality to the international community, he said.