Live updates: Trump says Iranian military leader was killed by drone strike ‘to stop a war,’ warns Iran not to retaliate
Iran vows revenge after U.S. drone strike kills elite force commander
(32 minutes later)
President Trump told reporters Friday that the United States had killed Qasem Soleimani, one of Iran’s top military figures, in a bid to “stop a war.” The president, speaking at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, urged Iran not to retaliate.
BEIRUT — Iran on Friday vowed "severe revenge" in response to a U.S. drone strike that killed Tehran's most powerful military commander, Maj. Gen. Qasem Soleimani, and dramatically sharpened tensions across the Middle East.
“We did not take action to start a war,” he said.
Soleimani was a towering figure in Iran's power projection across the region, with close links to a network of paramilitary groups that stretches from Syria to Yemen. His death in the smoldering wreckage of a two-car convoy in the Iraqi capital, Baghdad, left U.S. outposts and personnel bracing for retaliatory attacks and oil prices shooting upward. The U.S. Embassy in Iraq warned its citizens to leave "immediately."
The targeted killing of Soleimani, a powerful figure among forces aligned with Iran throughout the Middle East, dramatically increased tensions in the region and caused U.S. outposts and personnel to brace for retaliatory attacks. The attack also upset global markets and sent oil prices shooting upward. The U.S. Embassy in Baghdad warned Americans in Iraq to leave “immediately.”
"With his departure and with God's power, his work and path will not cease, and severe revenge awaits those criminals who have tainted their filthy hands with his blood and the blood of the other martyrs of last night's incident," Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said in a statement.
The Pentagon said that it will deploy 3,500 additional troops to the Middle East after Iran vowed to exact “severe revenge” on the United States for the drone strike that killed Soleimani early Friday near the Baghdad airport.
The country's defense minister, Amir Hatami, said the nighttime strike ordered by President Trump would be met with a "crushing" response.
Iraqi militias allied with Iran had been harassing U.S. forces in Iraq in recent weeks, including an attack on a base that killed a U.S. contractor. The United States has said that Soleimani was killed as he was planning new attacks and that Trump ordered the attack.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the attack was spurred by intelligence assessments indicating that Soleimani was overseeing an “imminent” attack on American citizens in the Middle East.
Here are key points of what we know:
“I can’t talk too much about the nature of the threats, but the American people should know that President Trump’s decision to remove Qasem Soleimani from the battlefield saved American lives,” Pompeo told Fox News. In a tweet, the president said that Soleimani had “killed or badly wounded thousands of Americans over an extended period of time, and was plotting to kill many more . . . but got caught!”
• Soleimani was a towering figure who was key in training Iran’s proxies around the region, especially in Iraq.
The basis for Trump’s statement remained unclear, although it followed comments Thursday by Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper suggesting that Iran and its proxies may be preparing renewed strikes on U.S. personnel in Iraq.
• There has been mixed reaction across the Middle East, with some praising Soleimani but others blaming him for instability in the region.
A U.S. official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to comment on the record, said that the attack was conducted by a U.S. drone and struck a two-car convoy on an access road near Baghdad International Airport. At least six people were believed to have been killed.
• Reaction in the United States has also been mixed, mostly along party lines between Republicans and Democrats.
U.S. airstrike kills Iranian commander Qasem Soleimani
• The Pentagon’s top general defended the decision to kill Soleimani on Friday afternoon, saying Soleimani was planning a “campaign of violence” against Americans.
After a week in which frictions between the two countries had sparked a siege of Baghdad's U.S. Embassy by supporters of an Iranian-backed militia, the drone strike early Friday local time appeared to be aimed at crippling a force that has been the vanguard of Tehran's decades-long effort to shape the region in its favor.
WASHINGTON — Speaking at an “Evangicals for Trump” event at the El Rey Jesus Church in Miami, the president praised the military for the “flawless strike that terminated the terrorist ringleader responsible for gravely murdering and wounding thousands and thousands of people, and hundreds and hundreds, at least, of Americans.”
Soleimani joined Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a young man and took control of the Quds Force, its special operations wing, in the late 1990s.
“[Soleimani’s] bloody rampage is now forever gone,” Trump said, adding that Soleimani was planning attacks against Americans, including a “very major attack.”
Under his command, the force built alliances across the region by paying for weapons and providing strategic guidance. Soleimani was regularly photographed on visits to affiliated militias in Iraq, Syria and elsewhere, burnishing a reputation as a talismanic operator with influence across the region.
“We are a peace-loving nation, and my administration remains firmly committed to establishing peace and harmony among the nations in the world,” Trump said. “We do not seek war, we do not seek nation building, we do not seek regime change, but as president, I will never hesitate to defend the safety of the American people like you.”
The operational impact of his death was not immediately clear. Iranian state media said that he would be succeeded by his deputy, Brig. Gen. Esmail Ghaani. Khamenei said that the strategy of the Quds Force under Ghaani would be “identical.”
He added: “Let this be a warning to terrorists: If you value your own life, you will not threaten the lives of our citizens.”
The U.S. strike appeared to have killed some of the Quds Force’s key allies. Among the dead were Jamal Jaafar Ibrahimi, a powerful Iraqi militia leader better known by his nom de guerre, Abu Mahdi al-Mohandes, who was once imprisoned in Kuwait for bombing the U.S. embassy there.
WASHINGTON — In a conference call with reporters, national security adviser Robert C. O’Brien said early Friday evening that the strike on Soleimani happened after the Iranian commander recently visited Damascus and was plotting to target Americans.
Qasem Soleimani: Who was Iran’s powerful military leader?
“He was planning attacks on American soldiers, airmen, Marines, sailors and against our diplomats,” he said. “This strike was aimed at disrupting ongoing attacks that were being planned by Soleimani and deterring future Iranian attacks through their proxies or through the IRGC Quds Force directly against Americans.”
It was unclear whether the United States had notified Western allies of the plan to attack, despite its potentially far-reaching implications for militaries stationed in Iraq and elsewhere in the region. Pompeo said on his Twitter feed that he had discussed the operation afterward with British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab, Chinese Politburo Member Yang Jiechi and German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas, telling them that “the U.S. remains committed to de-escalation.”
O’Brien said the Trump administration became aware of “what Soleimani was doing in the Middle East,” and the plots he was involved with.
He predicted that the Iranians would be seeking to assassinate or kidnap senior Americans in the region or strike U.S. naval targets in the Persian Gulf. That could, in turn, prompt a further U.S. escalation, perhaps to include strikes on Iranian territory.
“The president made a decision that … while there is always a risk in taking decisive action, there’s a greater risk in not taking that action,” O’Brien said. “The president was just not prepared to risk the lives of American servicemen and women and our diplomats, given Soleimani’s history and his efforts to further destabilize the region and the imminent nature of the attacks he was planning on Americans in Iraq and other locations.”
“Everybody is worried about this coming war that will reach the Gulf countries and even the whole region,” he said. A U.S.-Iran war has become increasingly inevitable since President Trump pulled out of the Iran nuclear deal and imposed new sanctions on Iran, Kahwaji said.
O’Brien added that Trump’s decision to target Soleimani came “ahead of the attack,” but declined to say how far in advance.
“It was inevitable that this was going to reach a point of climax, that if there weren’t going to be negotiations, there would be war,” he said.
“The president was kept apprised on an ongoing basis of how the operation was proceeding, and was informed of the operation on a very regular basis,” he said. Shortly after the strike occurred, O’Brien added, “we received notification from commanders.”
As Friday wore on, the responses from Iran’s paramilitary allies rolled in. In Lebanon, Hezbollah leader Hasan Nasrallah issued condolences for Soleimani’s “martyrdom” and urged Shiite militia factions in Iraq not to let his death “go to waste.”
WASHINGTON — The death of Soleimani was a reminder of his grim legacy in Iraq, where sophisticated weapons and tactics that he oversaw menaced U.S. troops for years, leaving a trail of dead and wounded service members.
Moqtada al-Sadr, a firebrand Iraqi Shiite cleric and militia leader, used his Twitter account to order fighters from his Mahdi Army “to be ready.” Formed in the aftermath of the 2003 U.S.-led invasion, the group gained notoriety for its attacks on U.S. troops before it was officially disbanded in 2008.
Explosively formed penetrators (EFPs), a weapon of Iranian engineering, were salted across battlefields wherever Iran-backed Shiite militias and fighters gathered, such as Kirkuk and Baghdad’s Sadr City.
Videos showed the crumpled, flaming wreckage of the vehicle in which Soleimani was thought to have been traveling. On social media, a photograph appeared to show his blood and ash-smeared hand with a ring in red and gold that had been visible in earlier photos.
The weapons, compact but potent, target armored vehicles in a way similar to traditional IEDs, but are much deadlier and more effective, Brian Castner, a former Air Force explosive ordnance disposal officer, told The Washingon Post.
On Dec. 31, supporters of an Iranian-backed militia breached the gates of the U.S. embassy in Baghdad, demanding that U.S. troops and diplomats leave the country.
Shaped like a coffee can but a little smaller, with a slightly concave end, the device is packed with plastic explosives that turn a copper plate into molten slugs that barrel through several inches of armor, sending molten shards tumbling through bodies and vehicle parts.
In a statement, Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi condemned the U.S. “assassination,” adding that the killing of the Iraqi militia leader was an act of aggression against Iraq and a breach of the conditions under which American forces operate in the country.
They killed 196 U.S. troops between 2005 and 2011, defense officials said.
There are few countries where the power struggle between Washington and Tehran has had such an impact, and Abdul Mahdi’s government has fought to prevent Iraq from becoming an arena for a shadow war between the two. Intensified regional violence would likely begin there, said Henry Rome, an analyst with the Eurasia Group. “Iranian-backed militias will attack U.S. bases and some U.S. soldiers will be killed; the U.S. will retaliate with strikes inside of Iraq,” he wrote in an analysis.
“They were really bad,” Castner said.
But he also suggested that the cycle might ultimately be contained. “Why would the Soleimani assassination not immediately trigger a limited or even major conflict? The structural factors are powerful,” he said, suggesting that leaders in Tehran might still be leery of any conflict which further damages an economy already crippled by U.S. sanctions, and that President Trump was unlikely to want to embark upon a new war with a reelection campaign looming.
EFPS were by far the most-dreaded explosive device he encountered because of their deadly efficiency, he said, and one story illustrated their power.
Iraq’s leading Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, condemned the U.S. drone strike on Friday and called on all parties to practice restraint.
A Humvee in Kirkuk was struck by one in 2006, and it took three legs from two soldiers. Castner was tasked with assessing the strike on the vehicle, which was still covered with blood.
“The vicious attack on Baghdad International Airport last night is an insolent breach of Iraqi sovereignty and international agreements. It led to the killing of several commanders who defeated Islamic State terrorists,” Sistani’s office said in a statement.
“There was still one foot left in the Humvee,” Castner said.
“These events and more indicate the country is heading toward very difficult times. We call on all concerned parties to behave with self restraints and act wisely,” he said.
WASHINGTON — State Department officials said Friday that hundreds of Americans could have been killed if the United States had not thwarted the planning by killing Qasem Soleimani.
For its part, Russia said the killing was reckless and would fuel tension in the region and offered condolences to its ally, Iran. “Soleimani loyally served the cause of defending the national interests of Iran. We offer our sincere condolences to the Iranian people,” the Foreign Ministry said.
One official described Soleimani as “the indispensable man,” whose cunning and ingenuity made it possible for Iran to launch attacks on American interests in the region through a number of proxy militias he helped train and equip.
The attack raises fresh questions about President Trump’s approach to the Middle East. While he has employed bellicose rhetoric and authorized several strikes against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s military — another close ally of Tehran — Trump has repeatedly promised to get the United States out of costly wars in the Middle East.
“With Soleimani dead, it will be very difficult for these proxies to be organized on the scale, lethality and effectiveness that they had under Soleimani,” said a senior State Department official, briefing reporters on the condition of anonymity under rules stipulated by the State Department.
Soleimani’s killing sent shudders through world markets: Brent crude oil futures jumped nearly $3 to $69 a barrel, their highest since September. U.S. stock futures plunged. The Dow Jones industrial average was set to drop around 350 points, more than 1 percent, and European markets were trading down nearly 2 percent.
“If we had not taken this action, and hundreds of Americans were dead, you would be asking me, ‘Why didn’t you take out Soleimani when you had the chance?’ The conditions were met to take decisive action to eliminate a very, very, very effective terrorist in the heart of the Middle East to save hundreds of American lives.”
Liz Sly and Sarah Dadouch in Beirut, Erin Cunningham in Istanbul, and Robyn Dixon and Isabelle Khurshudyan in Moscow contributed to this report.
Another official bristled when a reporter used the word “assassination” to describe Soleimani’s killing.
Why Iraq is at the center of the dispute between Iran and the United States
“Assassinations are not allowed under law,” the second official said. “Revenge killings, nonjudicial executions are not. The criteria is, do you have overwhelming evidence that somebody is going to launch a military or terrorist attack against you. Check that box.”
These pro-Iran militia leaders are provoking protesters at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad
WASHINGTON — New York Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo (D) announced Friday that the state would be bolstering security at key infrastructure points, including sending the National Guard to New York City airports.
Trump threatens Iran after embassy attack, but remains reluctant to get more involved in region
“Recent international events are understandably causing some anxiety, and while New York has not received any direct threats, out of an abundance of caution I am directing National Guard and state agencies to increase security and step up patrols at our most critical facilities,” Cuomo said.
Today’s coverage from Post correspondents around the world
An announcement from the governor’s office noted that the New York Power Authority was conducting checks and patrols on utilities.
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Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), a critic of military intervention, called the killing of Soleimani the “death of diplomacy” in the Middle East and said Trump has received “unfortunate counsel” on Iran, specifically calling out Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.).
Paul, making those comments on Fox News, said he had not spoken to Trump since the attack.
“I do fear the Iranians are going to escalate this. The president has shown prudence in the past in keeping the option of diplomacy open, but I think the door has completely shut now on diplomacy,” Paul said. “I don’t see any avenue, any way talks could begin again. Unfortunately diplomacy is dead now in the Middle East with Iran.”
WASHINGTON — House Armed Services Committee Chairman Adam Smith said in an interview Friday that he hopes to have top Trump administration and military officials testify about Iran before his panel as soon as next week.
Smith (D-Wash.) said he had been unable to arrange a secure briefing from Pentagon officials since Thursday night’s strike but hoped to arrange a public hearing with Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper and Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, shortly after House members return to Washington on Tuesday.
“We’re going to try as high a ranking person as we can get as soon as we can get them,” he said.
Smith said he was exploring legislative options to respond to the apparent escalation, including resurrecting a measure to constrain the president’s ability to strike Iran that was passed by the House last year but ultimately rejected by the Trump administration and dropped from a compromise bill passed in December. But he said he was focused for the moment on getting more facts and a more coherent strategy from the administration.
“If they were going to go down this road, it would be much more appropriate if Congress were to have a voice,” he said. “Even [George W. Bush] during the Iraq War regularly had key leaders in Congress over at the White House to talk about what needed to be done. The administration has not really done that. … We have some experience in this area, and I think that dialogue would be helpful in terms of arriving at a better policy and also helpful in ensuring that there was support for whatever that policy wound up being.”
WASHINGTON — Trump, in his first public remarks since the airstrike in Iran, said Soleimani was plotting “imminent and sinister attacks” against U.S. personnel in the Middle East and needed to be stopped.
The military action was intended to “stop a war. We did not take action to start a war,” Trump said, in brief comments from his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida. He also said he was not seeking regime change in Iran, but warned the current Iranian regime to stop its efforts to destabilize the region.
Trump also warned that if Americans are threatened anywhere, the United States is “ready and prepared to take whatever action is necessary.”
Soleimani was “plotting imminent and sinister attacks, but we caught him in the act and terminated him,” Trump said. “Under my leadership, America’s policy is unambiguous to terrorists who harm or intend to harm any American. We will find you, we will eliminate you.”
He added that Soleimani “made the death of innocent people his sick passion” and that the world was “a safer place without these monsters.”
Trump left the podium without taking questions.
WASHINGTON — Tim Kaine (D-Va.), a member of the Senate Foreign Relations and Armed Services committees, introduced a war powers resolution to force a debate and vote in Congress to prevent further escalation of hostilities with Iran. Sen. Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.) is an original co-sponsor of the legislation.
“For years, I’ve been deeply concerned about President Trump stumbling into a war with Iran. We’re now at a boiling point, and Congress must step in before Trump puts even more of our troops in harm’s way. We owe it to our servicemembers to have a debate and vote about whether or not it’s in our national interest to engage in another unnecessary war in the Middle East,” Kaine said.
War powers resolutions are privileged, meaning that the Senate will be forced to vote on the legislation. The resolution underscores that Congress has the sole power to declare war, as laid out in the Constitution. The resolution requires that any hostilities with Iran must be explicitly authorized by a declaration of war or specific authorization for use of military force, but does not prevent the United States from defending itself from imminent attack. The resolution will force a public debate and vote in Congress as intended by the framers of the Constitution to determine whether United States forces should be engaged in these hostilities.
ANAMOSA — Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) preempted a town hall meeting in Anamosa, Iowa, on Friday to deliver a forceful rebuke of Trump’s decision to order the killing of Soleimani. He emphasized his opposition to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, and drew parallels to the current situation in the Middle East.
“This is a dangerous escalation that brings us closer to another disastrous war in the Middle East, which could cost countless lives and trillions more dollars and lead to even more death, more conflict, more displacement in that already highly volatile region of the world,” Sanders said, speaking against the backdrop of large American flag inside the National Motorcycle Museum.
The Vermont senator has a long record of opposing many U.S. military inventions abroad. As a candidate for president, he has frequently brought up his opposition to the Iraq War and at times has contrasted his stance with former vice president Joe Biden’s support for the invasion. Sanders did not mention Biden is his speech Friday. But he focused intensely on his actions from nearly two decades ago, quoting himself and arguing that his words have relevance today.
He said that when he voted against the Iraq War in 2002, “I feared that it would result in greater destabilization in that country and in the entire region. At that time, I warned about the deadly so-called unintended consequences of unilateral invasion. Today, 17 years later, that fear has unfortunately turned out to be a truth.”
He added, “It gives me no pleasure to tell you at this moment we face a similar crossroads fraught with danger.”
CAIRO — A senior leader of the Iran-aligned Houthi rebels in Yemen called on Tehran to take immediate action against the United States and avenge the killing of Soleimani as well as Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the deputy commander of the Popular Mobilization Forces, a Shiite paramilitary force closely allied with Iran.
“The American aggressiveness of assassinating Soleimani and Al-Muhandis is a war crime against the nation,” said Mohammed Ali al-Houthi, head of the Houthis’ Supreme Revolutionary Committee, in a brief statement published on the Houthis’ official website.
He also gave condolences to Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khameini, and the political leadership in both Iraq and Iran.
Niamh McBurney, the Middle East and North Africa head at the global risk analysis company Verisk Maplecroft, said in an email that “the most likely response from Iran will come through its proxies and affiliated groups in Lebanon, Syria and Yemen.”
The Houthis, which have launched numerous drone attacks into neighboring Saudi Arabia, are widely believed to be supported by Iran. Saudi Arabia leads an American-backed regional Sunni Muslim coalition that is fighting the Shiite Houthis in Yemen, largely to prevent Iran’s growing influence in the region.
WASHINGTON — The Pentagon’s top general defended the decision to kill a top Iranian military commander in Iraq, saying Friday that the United States had “clear and unambiguous” intelligence that Soleimani was planning a stepped-up “campaign of violence” against Americans and that an attack “might still happen.”
Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in a meeting with several reporters in his office that Soleimani, a major general who commanded Iran’s Quds Force, was killed in Iraq after U.S. officials recently became aware of intelligence that led them to believe that with the “size, scale, scope” of what they saw in planning, there was a greater risk in not taking action against Soleimani than in doing so.
“Is there risk? Damn right there’s risk,” Milley said of possible Iranian reactions. “But we’re mitigating, and we think we’re taking appropriate mitigations.”
Milley said there is a range of possible outcomes after the strike, and the United States is preparing for them.
“The ball is in the Iranian court,” Milley said. “It is their choice what the next steps are.”
MOSCOW — Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov warned Secretary of State Mike Pompeo that a drone strike that killed senior Iranian commander Qasem Soleimani was illegal and threatened Middle Eastern stability and peace.
“Lavrov emphasized that the targeted actions of a UN member state to eliminate officials of another UN member state, moreover, in the territory of a third sovereign state without its knowledge, flagrantly violate the principles of international law and deserve to be condemned,” the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
“Moscow urges Washington to abandon the illegal power methods to achieve its goals in the international arena and solve any problems at the negotiating table,” the statement said.
NEW YORK — Mayor Bill DeBlasio warned that New York City could be under a “threat that’s different and greater than anything we have faced previously.”
“We have never confronted in recent decades the reality of a war with a government of a large country with an international terror network at its behest,” DeBlasio told reporters at a news conference. “No one has to be reminded that New York City is the number one terror target in the United States.”
Iranian allies have been interested in attacking the city before, the mayor said. “We have plenty of knowledge of previous efforts by Iranian proxies to scout and target locations in New York City. Hezbollah and others have made it a point over the years,” DeBlasio said.
New York Police Commissioner Dermot Shea said that there were “no specific credible threats” at this time, but that there would be heightened vigilance from law enforcement after the killing of Soleimani.
WASHINGTON — Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) weighed in on the U.S. drone strike during back-to-back floor speeches, with McConnell praising the Iranian military commander’s death and Schumer condemning the White House for undertaking the operation without congressional input.
McConnell, calling Soleimani a “terrorist mastermind” who was “directly responsible for deaths of more American service members than anyone,” urged his colleagues to reserve judgment until they were briefed by the Pentagon. McConnell said he was setting up a classified briefing for early next week.
“Predictable enough in this political environment, the operation that led to Soleimani’s death may prove controversial or divisive,” McConnell said. “I recommend that all senators want to review the facts and hear from the administration before passing much public judgment on this operation and its potential consequences.”
But Schumer said he and other Democratic leaders should have been informed about the strike. It’s unclear which Republicans were given advance notice, but Trump supporter Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) said he knew ahead of time.
“I’m a member of the Gang of Eight, which is typically briefed in advance of operations of this level of significance. We were not,” Schumer said in remarks on the Senate floor, referring to the House speaker and minority leader, the Senate majority and minority leaders, and the chairmen and ranking members of the House and Senate intelligence committees. “When the security of the nation is at stake, decisions must not be made in a vacuum.”
BAGHDAD — Anxieties and fear rippled through the Iraqi capital of Baghdad on Friday as an entire nation held its breath. Streets were quiet. Many restaurants were deserted. Along checkpoints down the streets, young soldiers and militiamen clutched their weapons tight, appearing nervous at what might follow.
Iraqis know well what it means to be trapped in a bloody shadow war between allies Iran and the United States. Some referenced the feeling of calm before the storm that pervaded the days before the 2003 U.S.-led invasion. “It’s just like 2003, but we have social media this time,” one woman wrote in a post.
In Tahrir Square, the epicenter of anti-government protests that have swept the country and decried Iranian influence over Iraq’s politics, early morning celebrations over Soleimani’s death gave way to a darker mood. Many said they feared a violent assault by Iran-backed militias, as they have already witnessed several times in recent months. Unlike previous Fridays among the protesters, there were no chants, activities or free food. For one of the young men gathered there, Ayad Emad, it was time to leave. “World War III is about to happen, and this is beyond demonstrations demanding reforms. No one is going to listen to us, given the circumstances.”
More than 500 people have already died in a months-long and Iran-backed campaign to quash the movement. “If there is an act of revenge for what happened this morning, there will be unnecessary bloodshed,” Emad said.
WASHINGTON — The Pentagon said Friday afternoon that it is deploying 3,500 soldiers from the 82nd Airborne Division to the Middle East to bolster security in the region.
The forces include battalion of about 750 soldiers from the division that arrived in Kuwait on Thursday, said three defense officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.
The soldiers are with the division’s “ready brigade,” a unit that is trained and prepared to deploy on short notice. Defense officials said Thursday that the remainder of the brigade was ordered to prepare for a deployment, but it wasn’t clear then if they would do so.
“This deployment was an anticipated and expected outcome when they were placed on notice,” the Pentagon said in a statement released Friday. “The brigade will deploy to Kuwait as an appropriate and precautionary action in response to increased threat levels against U.S. personnel and facilities, and will assist in reconstituting the reserve.”
Two of the defense officials said that the military also has put hundreds of soldiers from the Army’s 173rd Airborne Brigade in Italy on alert that they could deploy. They are preparing to do so, but it is not yet clear whether they will be sent.
The Bataan Amphibious Ready Group, a force of about 4,500 Marines and sailors aboard combat ships, also is moving east toward the Mediterranean, and could be called upon if the situation with Iran escalates, defense officials said. The group includes jets, amphibious vehicles and about 2,200 Marines.
BEIRUT — As the Middle East grappled with the fallout from Soleimani’s death, perhaps the most divided reaction came from Syria, where the Iranian commander is seen as a hero by supporters of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, who was backed by Iran, and a villain by Assad’s opponents.
“The martyr Soleimani will be canonized in the souls of the Syrian people who will not forget his standing beside the Syrian Arab army,” Assad said in a telegram to Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
But in Ariha, a rebel-held town in northwestern Syria’s Idlib province, Syrians filled the streets in celebration, waving revolutionary flags. “Soleimani is gone, gone, gone,” a man sang.
Meanwhile, in Lebanon, the news was a shock. Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, a Lebanese militant group that has seats in parliament and is one of Iran’s staunchest allies, released a statement praising Soleimani’s record leading militias in Iraq, a country Nasrallah said had been freed “from occupation and terrorism.”
Lebanon’s foreign ministry, headed by Gebran Bassil, a Hezbollah ally, also condemned the U.S. attack and called it a “dangerous escalation against Iran that aims to increase tension in the area.”
There was a muted official response on Friday from the monarchies of the Persian Gulf, including from states like Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates that have prodded the United States to take stronger action against Iran, while at the same time fretting about the consequences of escalating tensions in the region.
A Saudi government statement, noting the threats from “terrorist militias” in Iraq, also called for “self-restraint to prevent everything that might exacerbate the situation.” Anwar Gargash, the UAE’s minister of state for foreign affairs, wrote that “in light of the quickening regional developments, wisdom and balance should prevail,” in a message on Twitter.
There were scattered protests against the United States after Friday prayers in Bahrain, a tiny Persian Gulf state with a Shiite Muslim majority that hosts the U.S. Navy’s Fifth Fleet, according to activists there. In Kuwait, the government warned citizens to “avoid discourse that might affect national unity and lead to division and trouble,” according to the Kuwait News Agency.
WASHINGTON — In photographs released by the official office of Iran’s supreme leader on Friday, Khamenei was shown visiting Soleimani’s mourning family in Tehran.
Soleimani is reported to have had four children. An official from the Popular Mobilization Forces, an alliance of pro-Iran militias in Iraq, told The Washington Post that his son-in-law was also among the dead in Friday morning’s strike too.
TORONTO — Canadian Foreign Minister François-Philippe Champagne called on all sides Friday “to exercise restraint and pursue de-escalation” after a U.S. airstrike killed one of Iran’s top military commanders.
“Canada has long been concerned by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Quds Force, led by Qasem Soleimani, whose aggressive actions have had a destabilizing effect in the region and beyond,” he said in a statement Friday.
Canada has as many as 850 military personnel in Iraq and the surrounding region, as a member of the global coalition against the Islamic State and to train Iraqi forces. Champagne said their safety and that of Canada’s diplomats is his “paramount concern.”
BEIRUT — Iraq’s Kataib Hezbollah, an Iran-backed militia whose rocket attack last Friday on U.S. troops in Iraq precipitated the sudden escalation in tensions, warned Friday that the United States would face “grave consequences” for the killing of Soleimani and the group’s deputy leader.
The strike “places Iraq, the region, and the world in front of a dangerous juncture, the consequences of which may lead toward a war that spares none” the militia warned in a statement. “This will be the beginning of the end of the American presence in Iraq and the region.”
Kataib Hezbollah is one of dozens of Shiite militias in Iraq that fall under the umbrella of the Popular Mobilization Forces, or Hashd Shaabi, whose deputy leader Jamal Jaafar Ibrahimi, known as Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, was also killed. It was considered one of the most directly influenced by Iran and was regarded as an extension of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Quds Force, which Soleimani commanded.
The United States is holding Kataib Hezbollah responsible for an escalating campaign of rocket attacks targeting Iraqi bases where U.S. troops are present that culminated in the death last week of a U.S. contractor in Kirkuk. The U.S. airstrikes carried out in response against Kataib Hezbollah bases last Sunday triggered the attempt to storm the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad by thousands of militia supporters on Tuesday. The group had agreed to leave the embassy perimeter Wednesday, before Soleimani was targeted early Friday.
WASHINGTON — Michael Morell, the former acting CIA director under the Obama administration, told “CBS This Morning” that “there will be dead Americans, dead civilian Americans, as a result of this” airstrike, adding that a response could come “possibly over the next few days.”
Morell said that Iraq was the most likely place where U.S. citizens would come under threat, but he also pointed toward Lebanon, Bahrain and other places where Tehran-aligned militias operate. “This sets a precedent that senior officials are fair game,” Morell added.
Iranian hard-liners and their allies were likely to rally after the killing of a popular figure, said Morell, who retired from the agency in 2013 and has criticized the Trump administration. “I think we’ve now ended any hope of keeping Iraq out of Iran’s arms,” Morell said, suggesting that Iraqi politicians may now move to expel U.S. troops from the country.
JERUSALEM — Israelis reacted with muted satisfaction Friday to the killing of Soleimani, a man they considered the mastermind behind decades of terrorism directed against their country, even as they braced for potentially deadly retaliation by Iran and its proxies at a time of pitched tension in the region.
Israel’s embassies around the world were put on heightened alert, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu cut short a visit to Greece to monitor the situation from Jerusalem. Israel’s official reaction to the U.S. drone strike was restrained so as not to further inflame the moment or imply any Israeli involvement. Netanyahu instructed government officials not to comment but hailed the attack in remarks to reporters while traveling.
WASHINGTON — Sen. Robert Menendez (N.J.), the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and a prominent voice on Iran policy, said he was not briefed on the Soleimani strike and called on the Trump administration to deliver more answers to Congress on what prompted the attack.
“I fear that this administration used tactics but has no strategy in the long term,” Menendez said in an MSNBC appearance, “and what we cannot accept is a march to an unauthorized war.”
Lawmakers “need to see the facts,” he added. “If they can prove through the intelligence that this was an imminent threat against U.S. interests and personnel and that it was defensive in nature, then maybe it has the authority to [strike Soleimani]. But if they cannot … we see a gradual march to military action directly or indirectly with Iran, that has not been authorized by Congress. And if that’s where you’re headed, then you need to come to Congress to get an authorization for the use of military force.”
Menendez also speculated about possible retaliatory attacks that Iran may be considering, ranging from actions by proxy groups against U.S. allies such as Israel and Saudi Arabia, to targeting the region’s oil production capacity, to even attacks on the U.S. homeland.
“They can have sleeper cells in the United States,” he said. “It is possible to see sympathizers and supporters of the Quds Force in Iran make attacks here.”
WASHINGTON — Trump tweeted Friday morning that the United States has been paying large sums of money to Iraq “on top of all else we have done for them” and criticized the influence of Iran in the country.
“The people of Iraq don’t want to be dominated & controlled by Iran, but ultimately, that is their choice,” Trump added, before tweeting that the people of Iraq were not happy with the influence of Iran over their country. “It will never end well!”
U.S. strike on top Iranian commander sharply divides Congress
WASHINGTON — António Guterres, secretary general of the United Nations, is “deeply concerned with the recent escalation” in the Middle East, according to a statement issued by his spokesperson.
“This is a moment in which leaders must exercise maximum restraint,” the statement read. “The world cannot afford another war in the Gulf.”
BERLIN — European politicians on Friday warned of the potential for a violent blowback after the United States killed Iran’s top military commander. The British and German governments called for a de-escalation after the United States announced overnight that President Trump had ordered the killing of Soleimani. German government deputy spokesperson Ulrike Demmer said it marked a “dangerous escalation point.” British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said Britain had always recognized “the aggressive threat” posed by Soleimani but “further conflict is in none of our interests.” Some U.S. allies urged their citizens to leave Iraq immediately.
WASHINGTON — Crude oil prices spiked 4 percent Friday after news of Soleimani’s death spread, an abrupt escalation of Middle East tensions with serious implications for global oil supplies and economic growth.
Brent crude surged more than $2.50 a barrel, to $68.96, in its biggest jump since Saudi oil fields came under attack in September. West Texas Intermediate hit $63.72 a barrel, an eight-month high. Oil company stocks also climbed, with Shell up 1.4 percent and BP up 1.9 percent in Europe.
