What You Need To Know About The U.S. Strike On Iranian Military Leader Qassim Soleimani

Early on Friday (January 3), President Donald Trump authorized a drone strike at Baghdad International Airport in Iraq that killed Corps Major General Qassim Soleimani, Iran’s senior commander in the Quds Force of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards, the New York Times reported.


The strike comes immediately after an attack killed a American contractor in December, the Times reported; it wasn’t immediately clear who was culpable, yet Trump accused a Iranian-backed militia, Kataib Hezbollah. In the following days, the U.S. And Iran started trading deadly attacks and threats: The U.S. Killed 24 Iranian-backed militia members in Iraq and Syria; Iraqi militia broke into the U.S. Embassy and set fires; Trump deployed extra American troops to the Middle East; and Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the Supreme Leader of Iran, sparred with Trump on Twitter. The two nations have an already-contentious relationship, particularly since 2018, when Trump pulled out of a nuclear deal Obama traditional with Iran; the president has also reintroduced sanctions against the nation and designated its Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps as a terrorist organization.


The reasoning in back of this strike, which also killed a number of other Iranian officials, slightly differs depending on who you ask: The Pentagon said it was a preemptive move meant to deter future Iranian attacks, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said it was because “there was an imminent attack taking place,” and Trump tweeted that Soleimani was “plotting to kill several more” Residents of the United States and “got caught.”


The strike still came unexpectedly, and caused several to worry this might lead to a new war — former Presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush both resisted to kill Soleimani on the grounds of avoiding that very outcome, according to the New York Times.


Soleimani was beyond most of the Iranian intelligence and military forces within the past 20 years, the Times announced. His death has reverberated across the country;  Khamenei declared three days of national mourning. He also called for retaliation, and mentioned that “vengeance is in store for the criminals who stained their unclean hands with his blood and that of other martyrs in the incident last night,” according to Politico. He later added: “His blood was lose by the most barbaric of men.”


In response, the State Department is urging Residents of the United States to leave “Iraq and the region” immediately due to “heightened tensions.” Republican lawmakers have applauded Trump’s actions, justifying the attack on the grounds that Soleimani was culpable for the deaths of hundreds of Residents of the
U.S.. Nevertheless Democrats have called the strike a dangerous move that will inevitably lead to more attacks — and mention move didn’t go by way of the correct streams. Speaker of the Residence Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said in a statement that the action, which “was taken without the consultation of the Congress” risks “provoking further dangerous escalation of violence.”


“America – and the world – cannot afford to have tensions escalate to the point of no return,” she mentioned, adding later: “The full Congress must be immediately briefed on this serious situation and on the second steps under consideration by the Administration, including the significant escalation of the deployment of added troops to the region.” A top White Residence official told CBS News White Residence correspondent Paula Reid that those conversations are set to take place Friday (January 3).


This isn’t the opening time Trump has acted without briefing top congressional Democrats — he kept those leaders in the dark in October as soon as the U.S. Took out ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi as well, USA Today reported. Conversely, once President Obama took out al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in 2011, he briefed the eight most powerful Democrats and Republicans in Congress, according to the Congressional Statistics Service.