US President Donald Trump ordered the killing of Iran Revolutionary Guards commander Qasem Soleimani, who died in Baghdad “in a decisive defensive action to protect US personnel abroad,” the Pentagon said.
“General Soleimani was actively developing plans to attack American diplomats and service members in Iraq and throughout the region. General Soleimani and his Quds Force were responsible for the deaths of hundreds of American and coalition service members and the wounding of thousands more,” the Department of Defense said.
Following Soleimani’s death, Trump tweeted an image of the US flag without any further explanation.
President Donald Trump had ordered the US military to kill Iranian Major General Qassem Soleimani, the Pentagon has said in a statement.
Soleimani, the commander of the Quds Force of Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC), and Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the second-in-command of Iraq's Popular Mobilization Units (PMU), were killed in US airstrikes in the Iraqi capital Baghdad early on Friday.
The IRGC confirmed in a statement that Soleimani and al-Muhandis were martyred in the attack carried out by US helicopters. The Iraqi pro-government group also confirmed the incident.
“At the direction of the President, the US military has taken decisive defensive action to protect US personnel abroad by killing Qasem Soleimani, the head of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps-Quds Force,” the Pentagon said in a statement on Friday.
“This strike was aimed at deterring future Iranian attack plans. The United States will continue to take all necessary action to protect our people and our interests wherever they are around the world.”
Meanwhile, US troops with the 82nd Airborne Division arrived in Kuwait as part of the Immediate Response Force, the US Department of Defense announced.
The strike, which occurred at Baghdad’s international airport on Friday in Iraq, also killed the deputy chief of Iraq’s powerful Hashed al-Shaabi paramilitary force.
(FILES) A file handout picture released by the office of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on October 1, 2019, shows Qasem Soleimani, Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) Major General and commander of the Quds Force, speaking during an interview with members of the Iranian leader’s bureau in Tehran. A US strike killed top Iranian commander Qasem Soleimani and the deputy head of Iraq’s Hashed al-Shaabi military force at Baghdad’s airport early on January 3, 2019, the Hashed announced. Handout / KHAMENEI.IR / AFP
A pro-Iran mob this week laid siege to the US embassy following deadly American air strikes on a hardline Hashed faction.
The US had called the strikes in response to a rocket attack days earlier that had killed an American contractor working in Iraq.
The Baghdad airport was hit in a volley of missiles just after midnight Friday, Iraq’s military had announced.
Security sources told AFP the bombardment hit a Hashed convoy and killed eight people, including “important figures.”
Soleimani heads the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Quds Force and also serves as Iran’s pointman on Iraq, visiting the country in times of turmoil.
“At the direction of the President, the US military has taken decisive defensive action to protect US personnel abroad by killing Qasem Soleimani, the head of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps-Quds Force, a US-designated Foreign Terrorist Organization,” the Pentagon said.
“This strike was aimed at deterring future Iranian attack plans,” it added.
The Pentagon said that Soleimani had orchestrated attacks on coalition bases in Iraq over the past months, including on December 27, the day the US contractor was killed.
“General Soleimani also approved the attacks on the US Embassy in Baghdad that took place this week,” it said.
Speaker of the US House Nancy Pelosi holds her weekly news conference at the US Capitol December 19, 2019. (AFP photo)
US President Donald Trump’s order to assassinate Iranian Major General Qassem Soleimani has prompted swift condemnation from several US officials and lawmakers in Congress.
Former US Vice President and 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden warned that “Iran will surely respond.”
“President Trump just tossed a stick of dynamite into a tinderbox, and he owes the American people an explanation of the strategy and plan to keep safe our troops and embassy personnel, our people and our interest, both here at home and abroad, and our partners throughout the region and beyond,” Biden said on Twitter.
US Democratic leaders in both chambers of Congress expressed outrage over Trump's ordered strike, saying the Republican president did not obtain congressional approval.
"We cannot put the lives of American servicemembers, diplomats and others further at risk by engaging in provocative and disproportionate actions," said US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
"Tonight's airstrike risks provoking further dangerous escalation of violence. America – and the world – cannot afford to have tensions escalate to the point of no return," Pelosi said in a statement.
"The Administration has conducted tonight's strikes in Iraq targeting high-level Iranian military officials and killing Iranian Quds Force Commander Qassem Soleimani without an Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) against Iran. Further, this action was taken without the consultation of the Congress," she added.
US Representative Adam Schiff, another top Democrat in the lower chamber of Congress, warned Trump over the killing, saying "Congress didn’t authorize and American people don’t want a war with Iran."
“All steps must now be taken to protect our forces against the almost inevitable escalation and increased risk,” Schiff tweeted.
Representative Ilhan Omar, a Muslim lawmaker from Minnesota and a fierce critic of Trump, also attacked the president for his order to kill the top Iranian general.
“So what if Trump wants war, knows this leads to war and needs the distraction? Real question is, will those with congressional authority step in and stop him? I know I will,” she tweeted.
US Senator and Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren called the American attack a “reckless move” that “increases the likelihood of more deaths and new Middle East conflict.”
Senator Tom Udall said the strike could put “US forces and citizens in danger and very possibly sinking us into another disastrous war in the Middle East that the American people are not asking for and do not support.”
“I urge members of Congress on both sides of the aisle to show courage on this issue, and I urge the Trump administration to change course and pursue diplomacy before we are entangled in yet another war in the Middle East with no end in sight,” he added in a statement.
Democratic Senator Ed Markey said: "Trump's apparent assassination of Soleimani is a massive, deliberate, and dangerous escalation of conflict with Iran. The President just put the lives of every person in the region - US service members and civilians - at immediate risk. We need de-escalation now."
Representative Eliot Engel, a Democrat from New York and Chairman of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, said in a statement that “we are now again on the brink of direct confrontation in the Middle East. Tonight’s action represents a massive escalation in our conflict with Iran with unpredictable consequences.”
“Finally, this strike went forward with no notification or consultation with Congress. To push ahead with an action of this gravity without involving Congress raises serious legal problems and is an affront to Congress’s powers as a coequal branch of government,” he added.
The UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial executions, Agnes Callamard, also condemned the killing of Soleimani.
“The targeted killings of Qasem Soleiman and Abu Mahdi Al-Muhandis are most lokely unlawful and violate international human rights law: Outside the context of active hostilities, the use of drones or other means for targeted killing is almost never likely to be legal,” she wrote on Twitter.
Soleimani, the commander of the Quds Force of Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC), and Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the second-in-command of Iraq's Popular Mobilization Units (PMU), were killed in US airstrikes in the Iraqi capital Baghdad early on Friday.
The IRGC confirmed in a statement that Soleimani and al-Muhandis were martyred in the attack carried out by US helicopters. The Iraqi pro-government group also confirmed the incident.
The US Defense Department confirmed the strike, saying it came "at the direction of the president".
The Iranian general was a globally famous defense strategist who played a key role in the counter-terrorism operations that led to the collapse of the Daesh terror group in Iraq and Syria.
Soleimani had survived several assassination attempts against him by Western, Israeli and Arab agencies over the past years. In November 2018, The New York Times revealed a March 2017 meeting in Riyadh to assassinate Iranian officials, namely Soleimani.
Tensions between Washington and Tehran have been rising ever since Trump in 2018 withdrew the US from the nuclear deal that Tehran had signed in 2015 with the US and five other nations.
Trump’s policy on Iran has been defined by military threats and economic sanctions. He adopted a hostile approach from day one. However, the so-called maximum pressure campaign has only backfired.
Leader of Iran's Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei (left) and IRGC Quds Force Commander Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani
Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei says those who assassinated IRGC Quds Force Commander Major General Qassem Soleimani must await a harsh revenge.
In a statement on Friday, Ayatollah Khamenei said the “cruelest people on earth” assassinated the “honorable” commander who “courageously fought for years against the evils and bandits of the world.”
His demise will not stop his mission, but the criminals who have the blood of General Soleimani and other martyrs of the Thursday night attack on their hands must await a harsh revenge, the Leader added.
“Martyr Soleimani is an international figure of the Resistance, and all the devotees of Resistance are now his avengers,” Ayatollah Khamenei said.
"All the friends and foes must know that the path of Jihad of the Resistance will continue with double motivation, and a definite victory awaits those who fight in this auspicious path," the Leader said.
“The demise of our selfless and dear general is bitter, but the continued fight and achievement of the final victory will make life bitterer for the murderers and criminals,” he added.
In his statement, the Leader also offered condolences to the Iranian nation and General Soleimani’s family, and declared three days of national mourning.'Iran more determined now'
Following the Leader’s remarks, President Hassan Rouhani strongly condemned the attack, and said the US assassination will make Iran and other free nations more determined to stand against Washington.
“The martyrdom of the great commander of Islam and Iran, and the courageous commander of the Quds Force, Lieutenant General Qassem Soleimani, along with some of his companions especially the great fighter Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, by the aggressive and criminal US broke the heart of the entire nation of Iran and regional nations,” President Rouhani said in a Friday statement.
The assassination “doubled the determination of the great nation of Iran and other free nations to stand against and resist the excessive demands of the US and to defend the Islamic values,” he added.
“There is no doubt that this cowardly and evil move is another sign of the US’ desperation, inability and failure in the region, and the hatred felt by the regional nations toward this criminal regime,” Rouhani noted.
“The great nation of Iran and other free nations of the region will take revenge for this heinous crime against the criminal US,” he warned.
Defense Minister Brigadier General Amir Hatami also vowed that revenge will be taken against all those behind the assassination.
“Undoubtedly, this heinous crime which is a strong proof of the evil nature of the Big Satan, the arrogant US and it’s all-out support for terrorism in the region and Iraq, will be responded to in a crushing way,” the defense minister warned.
Earlier, former commander of the IRGC Major General Mohsen Rezaei also vowed a harsh revenge against the perpetrators.
Details of the attack
Speaking to Iran's state TV, the Iranian ambassador to Baghdad Iraj Masjedi explained that the US' missile attacks hit two cars transferring General Soleimani, Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, and 10 companions and bodyguards from Baghdad Airport to the city at 1 am (local time).
According to Masjedi, all the passengers have been killed, and arrangements are being made for their return to the Islamic Republic of Iran.
Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif looks on as he attends a press conference on a meeting of the Syria constitution-writing committee on October 29, 2019 at the United Nations Offices in Geneva. (Photo by AFP)
Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif has strongly condemned US assassination of IRGC Quds Force Commander Major General Qassem Soleimani, saying it will strengthen the resistance movement across the world.
“The malice and stupidity of the terrorist American forces in assassinating General Soleimani, the hero and commander of fight against terrorism and extremism, will undoubtedly make stronger the tree of resistance in the region and the world,” Zarif said in a Friday statement.
The top diplomat said Foreign Ministry will use its political, legal, and international capacities to implement decisions made by Iran's Supreme National Security Council in order to hold the criminal and terrorism regime of the US accountable for this blatant crime.
Zarif had earlier tweeted that “the US' act of international terrorism, targeting & assassinating General Soleimani— THE most effective force fighting Daesh (ISIS), Al Nusrah, Al Qaeda et al—is extremely dangerous & a foolish escalation.”
“The US bears responsibility for all consequences of its rogue adventurism,” Zarif warned
The comments came after Major General Soleimani and Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the second-in-command of Iraq's Popular Mobilization Units (PMU), were assassinated in US airstrikes in the Iraqi capital Baghdad.
The IRGC announced in a statement on Friday morning that Major General Soleimani and al-Muhandis were martyred in the attack carried out by US helicopters.
The Iraqi pro-government group also confirmed the incident.
"The deputy head of the Hashed, Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, and head of the Quds Force, Qasem Soleimani, were killed in a US strike that targeted their car on the Baghdad International Airport road," it said in a statement.
"The American and Israeli enemy is responsible for killing the mujahideen Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis and Qassem Soleimani," said Ahmed al-Assadi, a PMU spokesman.
Hessamoddin Ashena, adviser to Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, has said Washington "passed red lines" with its assassination of Gen. Qassem Soleimani and will "have to face its consequences".
The presidential adviser on Friday added that United States President Donald Trump has pushed Washington into the "most dangerous regional circumstances".
"Trump, with his gambling, has pushed the US into the most dangerous regional circumstances. One who passes the red lines will have to be ready to face its consequences," he said.
Earlier on Friday, the IRGC confirmed that Major General Soleimani, the commander of the Quds Force of the IRGC, had been assassinated in US airstrikes in Baghdad.
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