General Qassem Soleimani, the head of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards’ overseas forces, has been killed in a targeted US air strike at Baghdad airport.
A US Pentagon statement accused Soleimani of “actively developing plans to attack American diplomats and service members in Iraq” and said that US forces had “at the direction of the President” taken “decisive defensive action”.
The death of the military leader — who controlled Tehran’s extensive influence across the Middle East from Lebanon to Iraq, Syria and Yemen through the Revolutionary Guards’ al Quds forces — represents a dramatic escalation in the conflict between the US and Iran under the Trump administration.