Iran vows revenge after US kills top general in Baghdad strike

A US strike killed top Iranian commander Qasem Soleimani at Baghdad’s international airport Friday, dramatically heightening regional tensions and prompting arch enemy Tehran to vow ‘revenge’.

The Pentagon said US president Donald Trump had ordered Soleimani’s  ‘killing’ after a pro-Iran mob this week laid siege to the US embassy in the Iraqi capital.

Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei swiftly vowed ‘severe revenge’ for Soleimani’s death, the biggest escalation yet in a feared proxy war between Iran and the US on Iraqi soil.

As the US embassy urged all American citizens to leave Iraq ‘immediately’, Trump tweeted a picture of the US flag without any explanation.

Early Friday, a volley of missiles hit Baghdad’s international airport, striking a convoy belonging to the Hashed al-Shaabi, an Iraqi paramilitary force with close ties to Iran.

Just a few hours later, Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps announced Soleimani ‘was martyred in an attack by America on Baghdad airport this morning’.

The Hashed confirmed both Soleimani and its deputy chief Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis were killed in what it said was a ‘US strike that targeted their car on the Baghdad International Airport road’.

The Hashed is a network of mostly Shia armed units, many of whom have close ties to Tehran but which have been officially incorporated into Iraq’s state security forces.

Soleimani headed the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Quds Force foreign operations arm and also served as Iran’s pointman on Iraq, visiting the country in times of turmoil.

Muhandis was the Hashed’s deputy chief, but was widely recognised as the real shot-caller within the group.

Both were sanctioned by the United States.

An Iraqi official said that Muhandis had gone to Baghdad airport to pick up Soleimani, ‘which is something he usually doesn’t do’.

The Pentagon said Soleimani had been ‘actively developing plans to attack American diplomats and service members in Iraq and throughout the region’.

It said it took ‘decisive defensive action to protect US personnel abroad by killing Qasem Soleimani,’ but did not specify how.

Iran’s foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif slammed the US strike as ‘extremely dangerous and a foolish escalation,’ as Khamenei declared three days of mourning.

The Iraqi prime minister said the strike was a ‘flagrant violation’ of a security accord with the US, warning it would ‘spark a devastating war in Iraq’.

President Hasan Rouhani said Iran and the ‘free nations of the region’ will take revenge on the United States for killing Revolutionary Guards commander Qasem Soleimani.

‘There is no doubt that the great nation of Iran and the other free nations of the region will take revenge for this gruesome crime from criminal America,’ Rouhani said, referring to Iran’s allies across the Middle East.

Iran’s supreme leader named the deputy head of the Revolutionary Guards’ foreign operations arm Esmail Qaani to replace its commander Friday after he was killed in a US strike in Baghdad.

‘Following the martyrdom of the glorious general haj Qasem Soleimani, I name Brigadier General Esmail Qaani as the commander of the Quds Force of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps,’ Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said in a statement posted on his official website.

The world reacted with alarm on Friday after top Iranian commander Qasem Soleimani was killed in a US strike in Iraq, with leaders appealing for restraint.

‘The killing of Soleimani... was an adventurist step that will increase tensions throughout the region,’ the Russian foreign ministry was quoted as saying by news agencies RIA Novosti and TASS.

‘Soleimani served the cause of protecting Iran’s national interests with devotion.’

The killing of Soleimani risks provoking a ‘dangerous escalation of violence’, US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi said in a statement.

‘America - and the world - cannot afford to have tensions escalate to the point of no return.’

‘President Trump just tossed a stick of dynamite into a tinderbox,’ former vice president Joe Biden said in a statement.

‘China has always opposed the use of force in international relations,’ foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said at a press briefing.

‘We urge the relevant sides, especially the United States, to remain calm and exercise restraint to avoid further escalating tensions.’

‘We have woken up to a more dangerous world,’ France’s Europe Minister Amelie de Montchalin told French radio.

‘In such operations, when can see an escalation is under way, what we want above all is stability and de-escalation.

‘All of France’s efforts... in all parts of the world aim to ensure that we are creating the conditions for peace or at least stability.

British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said London had ‘always recognised the aggressive threat’ posed by Soleimani and his Quds Force. ‘Following his death, we urge all parties to de-escalate. Further conflict is none of our interests.’

Syria is ‘certain that this cowardly US aggression... will only strengthen determination to follow in the path of the resistance’s martyred leaders,’ a foreign ministry official was quoted as saying by state news agency SANA.

News Courtesy: www.newagebd.net