Iranian demonstrators chant slogans during a protest against the killing of the Qassem Soleimani, in front of United Nations office in Tehran, Jan. 3, 2020. Photo: WANA (West Asia News Agency) / Nazanin Tabatabaee via Reuters.

The killing of top Iranian commander Qassem Soleimani will lead to the “liberation of Jerusalem,” the spokesman for the elite Revolutionary Guards said on Thursday, according to the news agency Tasnim.

Soleimani, who was head of a branch of the Guards responsible for operations outside Iran called the Quds Force, was killed by a US drone in Baghdad on Jan. 3 along with Iraqi militia commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis.

“The cowardly and craven assassination of commander Soleimani and Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis by the Americans will lead to the liberation of Jerusalem, by the grace of God,” Ramezan Sharif said at a ceremony marking the 40th day after Soleimani’s death, a Shi’ite Muslim practice, in the city of Orumiyeh.

Iranian Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said last week that Iran would support Palestinian armed groups as much as it could and urged Palestinians to confront a US plan for Israeli-Palestinian peace.