07 Sep 2020; MEMO: An Iranian gaming company has released a mobile app called “Severe Revenge” which offers gamers the ability to ‘avenge’ the assassination of late Quds Force Commander Qassem Soleimani who was killed in a US drone strike on 3 January.
It is categorised as a strategy game on Café Bazaar, which is Iran’s Android marketplace founded in 2011 by graduates and students from Iranian universities and is sub-titled as Sardar Delha, or ‘Commander of the Hearts’ in Farsi.
Earlier this week, Al-Arabiya reported on the emergence of an Iranian board game, developed by Iran Bazi, an Iranian gaming company which is also based on a similar concept. The game is said to have first been released in February.
“Severe Revenge is a family brain teaser game about taking revenge against terrorist America so that families, youth and teens can spend their time and energy fighting the enemy even while relaxing and having fun,” Iran Bazi says about the game on its website, which is suitable for ages ten and above.
The killing of General Soleimani was deemed illegal under international law according to the UN’s most senior investigator into extrajudicial killings.
Agnès Callamard, the UN special rapporteur, said that the Trump administration had failed to provide sufficient evidence that there was an imminent threat to US interests to justify the strike on Soleimani’s convoy as it left Baghdad airport, and which also killed the deputy head of Iraq’s Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF), Abu Mahdi Al-Muhandis.
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) retaliated on 8 January after Iranian officials vowed a “severe revenge” for Soleimani’s killing by launching a series of ballistic missiles on military bases hosting US forces. Although the US denied there were any fatalities or casualties, contrary to claims made by Iranian sources, the Pentagon later acknowledged over 100 US troops were diagnosed with “traumatic brain injuries” stemming from the attacks, which was an increase from previously released figures as the symptoms could take time to manifest.
