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

Samuel Osborne, Jon Sharman
Qassem Soleimani was commander of Quds Force, and is pictured here during a 2018 meeting with Iranian supreme leader Ali Khamenei: EPA
Qassem Soleimani was commander of Quds Force, and is pictured here during a 2018 meeting with Iranian supreme leader Ali Khamenei: EPA

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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