Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei called the capture of ten American sailors “God’s deed” in a tweet posted Sunday.

God’s deed; IRGC’s timely job; Americans with hands on heads pic.twitter.com/b4XkdOdWoF — Khamenei.ir (@khamenei_ir) January 24, 2016

Khamenei’s comment was part of a a series of tweets praising Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) for seizing American naval vessels and taking their crews hostage two weeks ago. In one tweet he is seen congratulating the IRGC troops who captured the Americans.

Photos of meeting between Leader and IRGC forces who arrested US intruding marines.https://t.co/hEKxRmaxLp pic.twitter.com/etGej5L09H — Khamenei.ir (@khamenei_ir) January 24, 2016

The event must be seen God’s deed bringing Americans to our waters so that with your timely job they get arrested with hands on their heads. — Khamenei.ir (@khamenei_ir) January 24, 2016

Leader met young IRGC forces who bravely confronted & arrested US marines upon violation of Islamic Republic of Iran's territorial water. — Khamenei.ir (@khamenei_ir) January 24, 2016

After similar instances of Iranian aggression in the past, Khamenei often praised or promoted those responsible. As Michael Rubin, a former Pentagon official and now a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, noted in Newsweek, the commander of the IRGC operation that seized British sailors in 2007 “later was decorated as soldier of the year.”

Khamenei’s record of rewarding Iranian aggression would not have happened, Rubin wrote, if the bad behavior “was not blessed, encouraged, and supported from the very top” of Iran’s leadership.

Khamanei has used Twitter in the past to express extreme views. In November 2014, Khamenei tweeted a nine-step plan for eliminating Israel. Last July, just after the nuclear deal was announced, he tweeted an image purporting to be President Barack Obama with a gun to his head, with text threatening the “aggressive and criminal” United States.

In a video released on YouTube in September, Khamenei said that Iran would defeat the United States in the event of a war.

[Photo: Manuchehr lenziran / YouTube ]