Chilling audio reveals threat to fly a plane into the Capitol building on the day Congress confirms Joe Biden’s win to 'avenge' the death of Iranian military commander Qassem Soleimani
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.
A chilling message threatening to fly a plane into the US Capitol was heard by multiple air traffic controllers in New York on Monday afternoon, according to reports
The message referenced Iranian general Qassem Soleimani, pictured, who was killed in a U.S. drone strike ordered by President Donald Trump last year
Members of the DC National Guard on Tuesday the day after the message was heard
It is being investigated as a breach of aviation frequencies, which is a crime.
Any breach is concerning as it could be used to interfere with the messages pilots receive about how and where to fly their planes.
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.
The FBI told DailyMail.com that it had no comment on the investigation but that it takes 'all threats of violence to public safety seriously'.
The FAA added that it 'works closely with federal law enforcement and national security partners on any reported security threats that may impact aviation safety'.
Soleimani was regarded as the architect of Iran's foreign policy in the Middle East who saturated the battlefields of Iraq with high-tech IEDs to mutilate US soldiers.
Yet he was revered in Iran and officials have previously vowed revenge for his death.
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.
'The Islamic Republic of Iran is very seriously following up on pursuing and punishing those who ordered and executed this crime,' judiciary spokesman Gholamhossein Esmaili told reporters.
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.
The tension between the countries has become even more complicated in recent weeks with thanks to provocative moves by Iran and less-than-coherent actions by the outgoing Trump administration.
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.
The U.S. on Monday night called the seizure 'part of a clear attempt to extort the international community' and joined South Korea's demand for the tanker to be released.
It comes just two weeks before Joe Biden's inauguration and threatens to derail or at least delay the president-elect's hopes to return the U.S. to the nuclear accord with Iran that Trump withdrew from in 2018.
Iran is hoping that Biden will ease sanctions on Iran after he takes office on January 20, but there are fears that tensions could still boil over before then.
Vipin Narang, an expert on nuclear strategy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, warned that Trump is sending signals of 'total chaos'.
'If I were Iran right now, I would actually be thinking that it's possible that Trump is so unhinged and so angry about the election that he may overreact to any slight provocation,' Narang said.
Trump had warned that he would hold Iran accountable for the killings of any Americans after the US embassy in Baghdad was hit by rockets a week ago.
But Sunday's anniversary of the Soleimani drone strike passed without violence, despite angry demonstrations and Tehran's calls for vengeance.
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