Speaking on a live program on Iran's state-run TV on Thursday the Commander of the Guard's Aerospace Force claimed the United States was planning to hit Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei's residence in January.
After the targeted killing of Qods Force Commander Major General Qassem Soleimani on Jnauary 3, President Donald Trump threatened in a tweet that the U.S. will target "52 Iranian sites … some at a very high level and important to Iran and the Iranian culture, and those targets, and Iran itself, will be hit very fast and very hard." President Trump never named the 52 targets designated to be attacked if Iran hit American troops.
In response to Soleimani's killing, Iran attacked two Iraqi bases hosting American and other coalition troops on January 8.
SEE ALSO: Trump's Comment About Hitting Iran's Cultural Sites Stirs Controversy In Iran, USReferring to President Trump's threat, Brigadier General Amir-Ali Hajizadeh said: "The cultural spot that they were talking about was the residence of the Supreme Leader". He also said after Iran's missile attack the Guards were prepared to target 400 additional sites if the United States reacted. "We believed that they would retaliate, we had designated 400 sites to hit," he said.
Iran's Supreme Leader lives in a house adjacent to his office and a religious hall where he usually delivers his public speeches in a compound in central area Tehran. The old building of the Iranian Parliament, the Supreme National Security Council and the President's office are located within the compound.
A special unit of the Revolutionary Guard is in charge of the security of Khamenei's residence and the various buildings of his headquarters under the supervision of Ali-Asghar Hejazi, a former intelligence ministry deputy.