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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Dominic Raab, the foreign secretary, has issued a statement. He said: “We have always recognised the aggressive threat posed by the Iranian Quds force led by Qasem Soleimani.
"Following his death, we urge all parties to de-escalate. Further conflict is in none of our interests.”
Sir Keir Starmer, the frontrunner to succeed Jeremy Corbyn as Labour leader, has said the West needs to "engage, not isolate" Iran.
He tweeted: "This is an extremely serious situation. There’s a clear danger of further violence and escalation in the Middle East. We need to engage, not isolate Iran. All sides need to de-escalate tensions and prevent further conflict."
Russia has warned that the US airstrike which killed Qassem Soleimani may push Iran into accelerating its nuclear weapons programme.
An unnamed diplomat told the state-run TASS news agency Moscow considered the strike "an adventurist step".
And Konstantin Kosachev, the head of the foreign affairs committee in the upper parliamentary house, said the killing of Soleimani was a mistake and could "boomerang on its organisers".
"Iran may accelerate making a nuclear weapon now, even if it didn't plan on doing it before," he added in a Facebook post.
The potential for direct military action between Iranian and US forces is low, despite the shockwaves reverberating around the Middle East following the killing of Qassem Soleimani, according to one analyst.
"Despite the incident, the risk of direct military confrontation is still remote. The threats to both Iran and the United States, and their respective allies, would be great, and this would not serve any publicly stated goals of the Trump administration," said Niamh McBurney, from the risk analysis company Verisk Maplecroft.
She added: "The most likely response from Iran will come through its proxies and affiliated groups in Lebanon, Syria and Yemen. US political, military and business interests are now at stake in Iraq and Lebanon, and military personnel in the Persian Gulf are also vulnerable."
A top Iraqi official has called for the expulsion of all US forces from the country following American assassination of Iranian commander Qassem Soleimani and Shia militia leader Abu Mahdi al-Mohandes, writes Borzou Daragahi.
Hadi al-Ameri, a onetime protege of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard and now a leader of an important political faction and its armed wing, called on all “national forces to unify their ranks to expel foreign forces", according to state television.
A replacement for Qassem Soleimani has been announced by Iranian authorities, according to media in the country.
Brigadier General Esmail Ghaani will now command the Quds Forces, whose programme of operations "will be unchanged from the time of his predecessor", Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said in a statement published by state media.
John Bolton, the hawkish former national security adviser to Donald Trump, has tweeted approvingly of his former boss' decision to kill Qassem Soleimani.
Dominic Raab is expected to speak with Mike Pompeo, the US secretary of state, later today.
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