Iran news – live: Trump claims Qassem Soleimani was ‘plotting to kill’ Americans, and urges US citizens to leave Iraq after killing of Iran’s top general
US president and his top diplomat provide no detail for claim, while Tehran and allies vow revenge
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Your support makes all the difference.Donald Trump and his top diplomat, Mike Pompeo, have claimed Qassem Soleimani posed an “imminent” threat to American lives that justified the airstrike that killed him in Baghdad last night.
The US president said the Iranian general was “plotting to kill” US citizens, but neither he nor Mr Pompeo provided additional details to support the claim. Americans in Iraq have been urged to leave immediately in the wake of the killing.
Soleimani, the head of the elite Revolutionary Guard’s Quds Force and Tehran’s most senior military commander in Iraq, was killed near Baghdad Airport alongside Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, a high-ranking commander in Iraq’s militia.
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France will work behind the scenes to promote stability in the Middle East following the US airstrike in Baghdad, a foreign minister has said.
"What is happening is what we feared: tensions between the United States and Iran are increasing," Amelie de Montchalin told RTL radio. "The priority is to stabilise the region."
The US embassy in Baghdad has urged American citizens to leave Iraq immediately due to "heightened tensions".
They should leave by plane where possible, or overland otherwise, staff said.
Another pro-Trump Republican has hailed the killing of Qassem Soleimani as a "major victory" for the US.
Steve Scalise tweeted: "If you come after the United States, we will come after you with overwhelming strength. Soleimani was one of the world's most brutal terrorists.
"Thanks to @realDonaldTrump 's decisive action, Soleimani won't be able to kill anyone else. This is a major victory."
Another Democratic presidential candidate, Elizabeth Warren, has criticised Donald Trump's airstrike as "reckless".
"Soleimani was a murderer, responsible for the deaths of thousands, including hundreds of Americans," she said in a tweet.
"But this reckless move escalates the situation with Iran and increases the likelihood of more deaths and new Middle East conflict. Our priority must be to avoid another costly war."
Hezbollah, the Iran-backed militant group, has called on a worldwide "resistance" movement to avenge Soleimani's death, according to the Agence France-Presse news agency.
The group's leader in Lebanon, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, said the US' regional objectives could not be achieved through the "big crime" of killing the general, the Al Manar broadcaster reported.
Tom Fletcher, the UK's former ambassador in Lebanon, has said that Soleimani was a "much more powerful figure than Osama bin Laden or Baghdadi, where at the moment of their own deaths, their power was in decline". He told Today: "His was growing, as it has really since the US invasion of Iraq."
He added: "To his own side, he was an invincible folk hero - Robin Hood with RPGs [rocket-propelled grenades]."
Iranian foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif: US killing of Soleimani is an act of state terrorism
Hassan Rouhani, Iran's president, has warned Tehran "will take revenge" for the airstrike.
Wendy Sherman, a former senior official in the US State Department, has warned that "terrible reprisals" will take place following the Trump-ordered airstrike.
She told MSNBC: "There will be terrible, terrible reprisals. They will likely happen in the Middle East but they could happen, really, anywhere in the world.
"We have people all over the world that could become targets, and of course our military in Iraq are targets, our embassy in Baghdad is a target."
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