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The Guardian - US
The Guardian - US
World
Mario Koran, Joan E Greve, Aamna Mohdin, Ben Quinn (all earlier) and Martin Farrer (now)

US denies latest airstrikes targeting Iraqi militia in Baghdad – as it happened

Huge crowd expected for Suleimani funeral

Hundreds of thousands of people are expected to line the streets of Baghdad today for the funeral procession of Qassem Suleimani, the Iranian general killed in a US drone attack, writes our Middle East-based correspondent, Michael Safi.

Suleimani will also be honoured with processions in the holy Shia cities of Karbala and Najaf on Saturday, Iranian officials said, before his remains are taken to Iran for a prayer ceremony in Tehran and a burial in his hometown.

The funeral comes against a backdrop of extremely high tension in Baghdad where militais reported airstrikes on another convoy of vehicles on Saturday morning killed at least five people. The US has denied responsibility.

We’re closing the blog now but you read Michael’s full report here.

You can also read my colleague Mario Koran’s summary of the tumultuous events of the last 24 hours here.

Thanks for reading.

The statement from the US-led coalition, which is in Iraq and Syria to fight Islamic State, was tweeted out by a spokesman for Operation Inherent Resolve, Colonel Myles B Caggins.

Both Iraq’s umbrella grouping of Shia militias, the Popular Mobilisation Forces, and
Iraqi state television said the airstrikes had taken place and that they were carried out by the US.

US denies latest airstrikes

The US-led coalition in Iraq says it did not carry out Saturday’s airstrikes near Taj stadium in Baghdad that killed several people, a spokesman has said, according to Reuters.

Hopefully we can expand on this soon.

Reuters has some interesting background about what could have led to the killing of Suleimani. The news agency reports that in mid-October, the Revolutionary Guards general met Iraqi Shia militia allies “at a villa on the banks of the Tigris river, looking across at the US embassy complex in Baghdad”.

At the meeting, Suleimani told his Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis and other powerful militia leaders to step up attacks on US targets in the country using sophisticated new weapons provided by Iran, two militia commanders and two security sources briefed on the gathering told Reuters.

The meeting came as anti-Iranian protests were gathering strength in Iraq and the reports claims Suleimani wanted to up the ante against the US in order to provoke a response and turn the Iraqi protests against Washington.

This is the full report here.

Updated

Lack of official confirmation about the latest strikes means we’re feeling our way as to exactly what happened.

Newsweek says it has been told by Pentagon officials that the attack was on the Imam Ali Brigades, an Iraqi Shia militia with ties to Iran. There was a “high probability” that the strike resulted in the death of the brigades leader, Newsweek says, adding that it was a US operation.

Another thing to note on the new strikes is that a US government source has said it wasn’t an American operation.

Associated Press, quoting an anonymous official, said it “was not an American military attack”.

It’s only one anonymous source so we have to be cautious. Interesting though.

Thanks to the US team. I’m Martin Farrer taking over the blog.

There is a little bit more information about the airstrikes carried out on targets in Iraq early on Saturday morning local time that reportedly killed five members of Iranian-backed militia near Taj stadium in Baghdad.

Although there is no official confirmation of the details, Iraq’s Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMUs) umbrella grouping of paramilitary groups have denied that senior leaders were killed. It says the vehicles were carrying medics. convoy of medics, not senior leaders as reported in some media, according to a statement reported by Reuters.

The statement says: “Initial sources confirm that the strike targeted a convoy of Popular Mobilisation Forces medics near Taji stadium in Baghdad.”

Reuters goes on to quote an Iraqi army source saying that six people were killed in the strikes – not five – and that three were critically wounded.

Updated

Evening Summary

That does it for the live blog here on the west coast, but before I sign off and hand over the wheel to my colleagues in Australia, let’s take a look back at a very busy Friday.

Here are some highlights from the afternoon.

  • Earlier in the day Donald Trump defended the drone strike that killed Qassem Suleimani, Iran’s top general, claiming in a short statement to have taken the action required to stop a war. On the contrary, Majid Takht Ravanchi, the Iranian ambassador to the United Nations told CNN the US has started the war — and it can expect “harsh revenge.”
  • Meanwhile, the US is sending nearly 3,000 more army troops to the Middle East to squelch reprisals expected in the region.
  • Late in the afternoon reports surfaced of a fresh US airstrike which is believed to have hit a pro-Iran group of soldiers north of Baghdad. Details have been slowly trickling out, but still unconfirmed are the identities of the deceased.
  • And earlier in the afternoon Trump stumped at an Evangelical megachurch in Florida, where he lauded yesterday’s airstrike and touted actions he couched as his efforts to protect religious freedoms and Evangelical values. Reporter Richard Luscombe was on the scene reporting from Miami.
  • Finally, state department officials are trying to bolster claims from the president and the secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, that the killing of Suleimani stopped imminent attacks and was therefore an act of self-defence. “There were things he could do that nobody else could do,” a US official said of Suleimani. “He was not a decentralized manager; he was a hands-on, down-to-the-details manager. And we are not safe in the region as long as Iran is pursuing this general strategy, but we are safer without him than we are with him.”

Updated

In newly aired interview, the Iranian ambassador to the United Nations, Majid Takht Ravanchi, said the US has already started a war by assassinating one of Iran’s top generals and promised the country will exact “harsh revenge”.

“We cannot just close our eyes to what happened last night,” the ambassador told CNN. “Definitely there will revenge. There will be harsh revenge...the time, the place, will be decided by Iran.”

US officials are already bracing for retaliatory action.

“The Pentagon ordered 3,000 reinforcements to the region, diplomats were reportedly told to pack their bags in case of sudden evacuation, and the US secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, called his counterparts around the world to try to persuade them the US was “committed to de-escalation”, the Guardian wrote earlier today.

Read more here:

Updated

Along with the California representative Ro Khanna, the Vermont senator and presidential candidate Bernie Sanders today announced legislation that would prohibit any funding for offensive military force in or against Iran without prior congressional approval.

“I am introducing a bill with Rep Khanna to stop Donald Trump from illegally taking us to war against Iran,” Sanders wrote on Twitter.

“It’s working-class kids who will have to fight and die in a disastrous new Middle East conflict – not the children of billionaires.”

Updated

In the wake of the strike that killed Iran’s top general, and a more recent offensive that claimed the lives of five yet-to-be-identified members of an Iran-backed militia, law enforcement officials in several major US cities are advising residents to remain watchful for retaliation.

Guardian reporter Edward Helmore observes that officials in New York and Los Angeles have yet to encounter credible threats, but are remaining vigilant against potential threats.

“You see something, say something,” the New York City mayor, Bill de Blasio, said on Twitter.

Helmore noted:

In November, a ‘sleeper agent’ of Hezbollah, the Iran-backed Lebanese group listed by US authorities as a foreign terrorist organization, was sentenced to 40 years in prison by a federal court over plans to conduct terrorist attacks around New York.

Prosecutors claimed that Ali Kourani was “recruited, trained and deployed by Hezbollah’s Islamic Jihad Organization” and had spent “years conducting surveillance on the city’s critical infrastructure, federal buildings, international airports, and even daycare centers”.

Updated

Iraq official says airstrike targets Iran-backed militia, Associated Press reports

The Associated Press has reported new details on the latest airstrike in Iraq which it attributes to an Iraqi official who says the strike hit two cars and killed five members of the Iran-backed militia they were carrying. The unnamed official said the identities of those killed are unknown.

The salvo comes a day after a US drone strike that killed top Iranian general Gen Qassem Suleimani – an act of aggression which Iran has promised to avenge.

Updated

Reuters: 'airstrikes target Iraqi militia convoy north of Baghdad, killing six people, an Iraqi army source says'

Early reports have emerged on a fresh airstrike that took place in Baghdad and the details in the past hour appeared increasingly credible.

Reuters reports: “Airstrikes targeting Iraq’s Popular Mobilisation Forces umbrella grouping of Iran-backed Shi’ite militias near camp Taji north of Baghdad have killed six people and critically wounded three, an Iraqi army source said late on Friday.

Two of the three vehicles making up a militia convoy were found burned, the source said, as well as six burned corpses. The strikes took place at 1.12am local time, he said.”

Updated

Here’s more from the Trump event. Richard Luscombe, reporting from Miami:

Some of Trump’s biggest cheers came when he moved on to topics such as abortion and the “hard left’s” perceived war on religious freedom, and freedom of speech.

“We believe in the right to life,” he said, prompting lengthy cheers, and seemingly overlooking his own conversion from his 1999 position of being pro-choice.

“There is no issue that Democrats have become more extreme [on] than the issue of life, he said, claiming to have asked Congress to prohibit late-term abortion and that he had issued an executive order stopping taxpayer money going to fetal tissue research.

“We will not allow faithful Americans to be bullied by the hard left,” Trump said. “Very soon I’ll be taking action in our schools to protects students’ first amendment rights to pray.”

Using words carefully chosen to fire up his churchgoing audience, Trump accused Democrats of waging a “crusade” against religious freedom.

“The extreme left in America is... trying to replace God with socialism,” he said. “In America, we don’t worship government, we worship God. Since 2016 the left hasn’t given up on their religious crusade against religion. Democrats have worked to remove the words “So help me God” from the oath. Not going to happen. Not as long I’m here.”

Trump has now been speaking for one hour.

Updated

State department official on Qassem Suleimani: 'We are safer without him than we are with him.'

Guardian world affairs editor Julian Borger:

State department officials have been trying to bolster claims from the president and the secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, that the killing of Suleimani stopped imminent attacks and was therefore an act of self-defence.

“He was traveling around the region. He’s not there on vacation. He is there for the specific purpose to plan multiple attacks against Americans and facilities, and that’s why he’s hanging out with Muhandis [the PMF militia deputy commander],” said a senior state department official. “Why is he in the car with Muhandis?”

He added: “The threat picture that the intelligence presented made very clear that in the absence of decisive action, hundreds of Americans would be killed” in Iraq, Syria and Lebanon.

“These were attacks targeting American diplomats, American military personnel, and American – facilities that house Americans. Whether it’s – whether we’re being hosted by the government or whether it’s our own facility,” he said.

The official said that Suleimani would be hard for Iran to replace and so killing him had helped to stop attacks. “I’m just saying that Suleimani, I think, was in many ways the indispensable man, and with Suleimani dead, it will be very difficult for these proxies to be organized on the scale, lethality, and effectiveness that they had under Suleimani,” the official said.

Another official said: “There were things he could do that nobody else could do. He was not a decentralized manager; he was a hands-on, down-to-the-details manager. And we are not safe in the region as long as Iran is pursuing this general strategy, but we are safer without him than we are with him.”

A third official added Suleiman’s death would reduce the pace of attacks on Americans. “It slows it down. It makes it less likely,” the official said, adding: “Jesus, do we have to explain why we do these things?”

Updated

Leading up to the rally in Florida, where Trump is making case that Democratic leaders pose a threat to the religious freedoms he has protected, his administration announced that it would appeal a district court ruling that blocked a so called “conscience rule” that would have made it easier for healthcare workers to avoid assisting with abortion or other medical procedures on religious or moral grounds.

Last month the New York Times reported that the rule “is part of a broader agenda by the Trump administration, which says it wants to expand protections for the civil rights of healthcare workers, even as critics say it has weakened civil rights protections for certain patients. President Trump announced the rule last May at a Rose Garden event for the National Day of Prayer.”

Updated

Richard Luscombe, reporting from Miami, has more from the Trump rally:

Trump wasted no time in gloating about the “flawless strike” that eliminated the Iranian general Qassem Suleimani after taking to the stage in Miami 10 minutes earlier than scheduled, and praying with faith leaders, including the pastor of the King Jesus international ministry, Guillermo Maldonado.

“It was flawless strike that eliminated the terrorist ringleader,” Trump said, claiming that his death will save the lives of “hundreds and hundreds of Americans”.

Qassem Suleimani has been killed and his bloody rampage is now forever gone. He was plotting attacks against America but now be assured his atrocities have been stopped for good. He was planning a very major attack and we got him.”

We are a peace loving nation,” Trump went on. “My administration remains committed to establishing peace and harmony. We do not seek war we do not seek nation building.”

“Let this be a warning to terrorists, if you value your life you will not threaten the lives of our citizens.”

Updated

Summary

Donald Trump has taken the stage at the “Evangelicals for Trump” event taking place now at a Florida megachurch and wasted no time in speaking to the drone strike that killed Qassem Suleimani, Iran’s top general, doubling down on the claim that the military action interrupted an attack Suleimani had planned.

He was preparing for an attack, Trump said of Iran’s general, “and we got him”. (Trump’s critics have pointed the unverified nature of that claim).

The US president quickly moved on to his commitment to protecting Evangelical values, a point aimed at the dozens of evangelical leaders who have assembled at the Miami megachurch.

Richard Luscombe, who’s on the scene in Miami, observed that “Trump is calculating that by appealing to evangelicals he can again lock in the support of a large power base of voters that helped propel him to the White House in 2016.”

Updated

Evening summary

That’s it from me on the live blog today. My west coast colleague, Mario Koran, will take things over for the next few hours.

Here’s where the day stands so far:

  • In a short statement at his Florida resort, Donald Trump defended the drone strike that killed Qassem Suleimani, Iran’s top general. “We took action last night to stop a war,” the US president said. “We did not take action to start a war.”
  • The US is sending nearly 3,000 more army troops to the Middle East amid fears of reprisals over the killing of Suleimani.
  • Mike Pence justified the Suleimani strike by claiming (without evidence) that Iran supported the September 11 attackers – prompting criticism from foreign-policy experts, who called the vice-president’s assertion inaccurate and dangerous.
  • Trump’s Republican allies praised the strike as a necessary intervention to stop a “master terrorist”, but Democratic presidential candidates and lawmakers expressed fear that the attack could have disastrous consequences and set off “another endless war” in the Middle East.
  • The commander of the Quds force, which was previously run by Suleimani, advised Iranians angry about the general’s death to be “patient” and witness the killing of Americans across the Middle East.

Mario will have much more coming up, so stay tuned.

Updated

Foreign-policy reporters criticized Mike Pence for linking Iran to the September 11 attackers without any evidence in order to justify the drone strike that killed Iranian general Qassem Suleimani.

(The vice-president also misstated the number of September 11 attackers as 12, rather than 19.)

Updated

Florida’s Democratic party rolled out some religious figures of their own to counter Donald Trump’s afternoon appearance before a Christian evangelical congregation in Miami.

Doug Pagitt, a pastor and executive director of Vote Common Good, an organization that mobilizes voters of faith, decried the president’s event as a sham in a press call.

“He’s trying to use this rally and this base to give cover for his broken promises and his immoral policies,” Pagitt said.

“It is Trump’s desperate response to the realization that he’s losing his primary voting bloc, faith voters. He realizes he needs every last vote if he wants a shot at re-election [and] losing even five per cent ends his chances.

“Many of these voters realize that Jesus’s admonition that you can gain the whole world and lose your very soul is coming into focus for them. While they will hear from Donald Trump that he is the best thing to ever happen to evangelical Christianity, these are voters who know that their faith does not depend on the power of the presidency.”

Pagitt said the rally offered faith voters two different visions of America. “One is to seek all that which benefits you and your agenda. The other is to think about others and to care for the common good,” he said.

Kevin Chambliss, a youth minister at Miami’s Covenant Missionary Baptist church, spoke of the need to “hold truth to power”.

“We must hold this president accountable by calling out his disdain for law, we must speak up when he labels whole groups of people a racists, murderers and thieves, we have to speak up when he openly mocks people of disabilities, we must speak up when he unapologetically tries to use the government to discriminate against people because of their religious beliefs,” he said.

“We need to make sure we don’t have another four years of Donald Trump, I see a better day in our country when those who need help the most can receive it with loving arms and not be taken advantage of as this president has done.”

Updated

In his short statement on the Suleimani strike, Trump repeated his administration’s claim that the Iranian general was planning an imminent attack on US forces.

“Last night, at my direction, the United States military successfully executed a flawless precision strike that killed the number one terrorist anywhere in the world, Qassem Soleimani,” the US president said in his statement. “Soleimani was plotting imminent and sinister attacks on American diplomats and military personnel, but we caught him in the act and terminated him.”

But it appears even some Penragon officials were unclear on what “imminent and sinister attacks” Trump was referring to.

The New York Times reports:

Trump administration officials have provided no specific details of what they said were imminent threats, and some Defense Department officials said they knew of only generalized threats that did not appear to be imminent.

Pence defends Suleimani strike with false September 11 claim

The vice president has jumped to Trump’s defense to justify the drone strike that killed Qassem Suleimani, calling the Iranian general “an evil man who was responsible for killing thousands of Americans.”

But Pence’s list of “atrocities” was criticized by experts for including falsehoods, such as misstating the number of September 11 attackers and linking those terrorists to Iran without any evidence.

Updated

Here is more of the short statement Trump delivered on the Suelimani strike moments ago at Mar-a-Lago:

“As president my highest and most solemn duty is the defense of our nation and its citizens. Last night, at my direction, the United States military successfully executed a flawless precision strike that killed the number one terrorist anywhere in the world, Qassem Soleimani. Soleimani was plotting imminent and sinister attacks on American diplomats and military personnel, but we caught him in the act and terminated him.

“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. ...

“Today we remember and honor the victims of Soleimani’s many atrocities and we take comfort in knowing that his reign of terror is over. Soleimani has been perpetrating acts of terror to destabilize the Middle East for the last 20 years. What the United States did yesterday should have been done long ago. ...

“America will always pursue the interests of good people, great people, great souls, while seeking peace, harmony and friendship with all of the nations of the world.”

In his statement on the Suleimani strike, Trump praised the work of the intelligence agencies that he has previously criticized as part of a “deep state” seeking to undermine his presidency.

On top of that, US officials have offered few details about the imminent attack Suleimani was allegedly plotting against American forces, leading some of the president’s critics to raise doubts about the veracity of the claim.

Interestingly, the president’s team called the White House press pool back to Mar-a-Lago after the reporters had already left for the airport to travel to Trump’s event in Miami tonight.

Once the press pool returned to the Florida resort, the president delivered his short statement on the Suleimani strike.

Donald Trump will appear at a Miami megachurch later this afternoon intending to bolster his standing with evangelical Christians. But among the lines of supporters waiting to get in, last night’s US military strike in Baghdad was a more popular topic of conversation.

“We can get anybody, anywhere, anytime, anywhere there is terrorism,” said Michael David Layne, 62, a US Army veteran and Trump supporter from Miami, who attends the King Jesus international ministry in West Kendall where Trump is expected to deliver remarks at 5pm ET.

Praising the president for taking “strong action,” Layne said the death of Iranian general Qassem Suleimani would help prevent future bloodshed. “This wasn’t just about last night or this morning, it’s to prevent things all around the world. There’s a lot of confusion in the world, a lot of things going on.” He also believes Trump’s Christian values helped to guide him ordering of the strike. “He might be a little rough around the edges for some people, but he says it like it is, and if some of things he says or the actions he takes upset some people it doesn’t make him less of a man of God.”

Trump’s “congregation” of around 7,000 this afternoon is heavily Hispanic, reflecting the make up of the Miami church where the Latino pastor, Guillermo Maldonado, delivers services in English and Spanish. Maldonado, a Trump loyalist who has prayed with the president at the White House, raised eyebrows in a weekend sermon when he assured immigrant parishioners in the US without papers that they would not be at risk of detention or deportation if they attended today. It makes it likely that a president whose hard-line anti-immigrant position has led to the deportation of thousands of immigrants will be counting among his supporters some of those he has demonized through policies and actions.

There were also a handful of demonstrators outside the church, which was playing soft gospel music over loudspeakers to the waiting faithful. Francisco Morales, 47, traveled 30 miles to the event from Fort Lauderdale with placards highlighting the 10 Commandments he says Trump has violated.

“He’s everything a Christian shouldn’t be. He’s about money and himself, he uses God’s word to his benefit, he doesn’t respect Christian holidays, he insults everyone. And he dishonors his wife, his daughter and all women,” Morales said.

Trump says US is not seeking Iranian 'regime change'

In his short statement to reporters, Trump specifically said the US is not seeking “regime change” in Iran after the killing of general Qassem Suleimani.

But just hours after the strike was carried out, the president’s former national security adviser, John Bolton, expressed hope that the attack would be “the first step to regime change in Tehran.”

Trump says US is ready to take 'whatever action is necessary' against Iran

In his short statement to reporters at Mar-a-Lago, Trump said the US is “ready and prepared” to take “whatever action is necessary” against Iran.

With that, the US president turned and left without responding to shouted questions from the White House press pool.

Trump: 'We took action last night to stop a war'

Trump is delivering a statement to reporters at his Florida resort Mar-a-Lago, his first public remarks since the killing of Iranian general Qassem Suleimani.

“We caught him in the act and eliminated him,” the US president said. “We take comfort in knowing that his reign of terror is over.”

“We took action last night to stop a war,” Trump added. “We did not take action to start a war.”

Trump to make statement on Iran

The White House press pool was just brought into a room at Mar-a-Lago with a podium, where Donald Trump is expected to soon deliver a statement on the killing of Qassem Suleimani.

Democratic senator Tim Kaine has filed a resolution to force a congressional debate on US military operations in Iran, a measure that would need only a majority of senators’ support to pass.

The Wall Street Journal reports:

Sen. Tim Kaine (D., Va.) on Friday filed a war-powers resolution that would force a debate and vote in the Senate ending further military operations against Iran. The language would make it clear that the U.S. would still have the right to defend itself against imminent attack and that war against Iran would have to be explicitly authorized by Congress, he said.

The 1973 War Powers Act gave Congress the ability to remove U.S. military forces from hostilities in the absence of a formal declaration of war. Such resolutions are privileged, meaning that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.) couldn’t block it from coming to the floor. It needs a simple majority of 51 senators to pass. If the House passes an identical resolution by majority vote, the bill would still be subject to a presidential veto.

Last year, Mr. Trump vetoed a war-powers resolution that would have ended America’s role in the Saudi-led war in Yemen.

The Russian foreign ministry has released its own statement on the conversation between minister Sergei Lavrov and US secretary of state Mike Pompeo regarding the Suleimani strike.

The Russian government’s statement said the US attack violates “the principles of international law” and is “fraught with grave consequences for regional peace and stability.”

In contrast, Pompeo said of his conversation with Lavrov that he “emphasized that de-escalation is the United States’ principal goal.”

Congressman Adam Schiff, the Democratic chairman of the House intelligence committee, expressed fear that the Suleimani strike could lead to escalation between US and Iranian forces.

“I’ve had the opportunity to get a briefing on the intelligence that led to the recent strikes, and I have profound concerns about the prospect for serious escalation,” the California Democrat told reporters on Capitol Hill.

Some of the president’s critics are resharing his old tweets to argue Trump has broken his campaign promise to curtial America’s presence in the Middle East.

This 2011 tweet, incorrectly predicting Barack Obama would start a war with Iran to win reelection, has been frequently retweeted today. (Some Democratic lawmakers have accused Trump of only approving the Suleimani strike to improve his own reelection chances.)

The president’s critics have also pointed to this tweet from just three months ago, calling for an end to the “Endless Wars.”

Democratic presidential candidates have also invoked the phrase “endless wars” today to warn about the potential repercussions of the Suleimani strike.

Democratic presidential candidate Marianne Williamson said she would be releasing a “video update on the Iran situation today,” but considering the self-help author has had to lay off her campaign staff nationally, the update will likely be a rather low-tech production.

Senator Richard Burr, the Republican chairman of the intelligence committee, released a statement condemning Qassem Suleimani as “the personification of a state sponsor of terrorism” who had “become the single most destabilizing force in the Middle East.”

“Iran and the Iranian people can now turn away from Soleimani’s murderous adventurism, redirect the Quds Force’s money into Iran’s economy, bring home the troops Soleimani sent abroad, and move forward toward building a more peaceful region,” Burr said of the general’s death.

But Burr’s statement does not address the potential reprisals against US forces for the Suleimani strike or possible next steps in the Middle East.

It’s worth noting that Democrats are in agreement with Republicans about the thousands of deaths that Suleimani caused, but Democratic lawmakers are raising concerns that the costs of the general’s killing may far outweigh the benefits.

And Trump’s allies don’t seem to be coming up with much of a counterargument on that front.

Defense secretary Mark Esper has canceled his planned personal leave, which he was scheduled to take later this month, in the wake of the Suleimani strike.

The Pentagon released a statement last night calling the strike a “decisive defensive action to protect U.S. personnel abroad,” claiming the Iranian general was “actively developing plans to attack American diplomats and service members in Iraq and throughout the region.”

But Esper has not made himself available to reporters today, leaving many questions about what action defense officials were trying to prevent.

The killing of Iranian general Qassem Suleimani by the US in Iraq was an act of “international terrorism,” Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif told state TV on Friday, the Associated Press reports.

“It was an extremely dangerous, foolish escalation ... He was the most effective force fighting against Islamic State and al Qaeda terrorists,” Zarif said.

Nearly 3,000 troops from 82nd Airborne to be deployed to Middle East

Defense officials told the AP that nearly 3,000 more troops from the 82nd Airborne Division would be deployed to the Middle East amid fears of reprisals against the US for the killing of Iranian general Qassem Suleimani.

The AP reports:

The United States is sending nearly 3,000 more Army troops to the Mideast as reinforcements in the volatile aftermath of the killing of an Iranian general in a strike ordered by President Donald Trump, defense officials said Friday.

The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss a decision not yet announced by the Pentagon, said the troops are from the 82nd Airborne Division at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. They are in addition to about 700 soldiers from the 82nd Airborne who deployed to Kuwait earlier this week after the storming of the U.S. Embassy compound in Baghdad by Iran-backed militiamen and their supporters.

Updated

Quds force commander: Be 'patient' and witness Americans' deaths

The commander of the Quds force, which was previously run by the late general Qassem Suleimani, advised Iranians to “be patient” following the US drone strike and witness the deaths of Americans across the Middle East.

Speaking on the Senate floor, Democratic minority leader Chuck Schumer argued Trump “does not have the authority for a war with Iran” and questioned what “legal basis” the president had for the Suleimani strike.

“The need for advance consultation and transparency with Congress was put in the Constitution for a reason,” Schumer said, noting that Democratic leaders were not given advance notice of the strike.

The New York Democrat added, “When the security of the nation is at stake, decisions must not be made in a vacuum.”

US to reportedly deploy thousands more troops to the Middle East

As the US braces for possible reprisals following the killing of Iranian general Qassem Suleimani, the Pentagon is reportedly deploying thousands of additional troops to the Middle East.

The news comes after Iran’s supreme leader promsied “severe revenge” on the US, but the move could anger some supporters of Donald Trump, who ran for president on the basis of curtailing America’s military presence abroad.

In the wake of the Suleimani strike, retaliation against the US seems virtually certain, although the exact nature of those reprisals remains unclear.

The Guardian’s Julian Borger reports:

Iran has spent decades preparing for a moment like this, developing methods and networks around the world that give Tehran the widest possible choice when it comes to taking revenge.

In the weeks immediately after the airstrike that killed Iran’s most powerful general, the threat against Americans and their allies will be greatest in the Middle East, but the risk will balloon out across the globe over the months and years to come.

Any US outpost in Syria and Iraq, military or diplomatic, is vulnerable to attacks, likely to come from Iranian-backed militias linked to Kata’ib Hezbollah, which has served as Tehran’s most reliable fist in Iraq. In Iraq, there will be even less protection from the state, which is furious about the attack outside Baghdad airport.

Updated

The supreme leader of Iran visited the family of Qassem Suleimani after the Iranian general was killed in a US drone strike, and Ayatollah Ali Khamenei posted a photo from the visit to his Instagram page.

Biden: Suleimani strike could bring US to 'brink of a new kind of conflict in the Middle East'

Speaking in the first caucus state of Iowa, Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden warned that the Suleimani strike could bring the US to “the brink of a new kind of conflict in the Middle East.”

Two of the other frontrunners in the Democratic presidential primary, senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, have similarly warned the killing of the top Iranian general could set the US on the path to war.

Updated

All US senators to be briefed on Suleimani strike next week

Mitch McConnell, the Republican majority leader of the US Senate, said all senators would be briefed on the drone strike that killed Iranian general Qassem Suleimani early next week.

The Kentucky Republican also noted that key Senate staffers would be briefed by Trump administration officials later today.

McConnell acknowledged that the operation in Baghdad “may prove controversial or divisive,” but he advised his Senate colleagues to “wait to review the facts and hear from the administration” before passing judgement on the state of affairs.

The Senate leader then turned his attention to the impeachment trial of Donald Trump, the timing and parameters of which remain deeply uncertain.

McConnell: 'Iran’s master terrorist is dead'

Mitch McConnell, the Republican majority leader of the US Senate, is speaking on the Senate floor about the drone strike that killed Iranian general Qassem Suleimani.

“Iran’s master terrorist is dead,” McConnell said, adding that Suleimani targeted US and Israeli forces and “masterminded Iran’s malevolent and destabilizing work throughout the entire Middle East.”

“Now his terrorist leadership has been ended,” McConnell said.

US secretary of state Mike Pompeo said he has spoken to Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, and “emphasized that de-escalation is the United States’ principal goal” after launching a drone strike that killed Iran’s top general.

The French government has released a statement on the conversation between Jean-Yves Le Drian, the country’s minister of Europe and foreign affairs, and US secretary of state Mike Pompeo regarding the Suleimani strike.

“The minister underscored France’s concern over the rise in tensions in the Middle East over the past several months, with a sudden escalation in Iraq in recent weeks,” the statement reads.

“For France and all of its partners, every effort must now be made to avoid a further escalation of tensions and to facilitate de-escalation in order to preserve the stability of Iraq and the region as a whole.

“In the current situation, France calls on all the parties to show restraint and on Iran to avoid taking any measures liable to aggravate regional instability or lead to a serious nuclear proliferation crisis.”

Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg, who is a veteran of the war in Afghanistan, released a statement on the Suleimani strike warning of the “immediate and very real dangers to American citizens in and out of uniform in the Middle East.”

“There is no question that Qassim Suleimani was a threat to that safety and security, and that he masterminded threats and attacks on Americans and our allies, leading to hundreds of deaths,” Buttigieg said. “But there are serious questions about how this decision was made and whether we are prepared for the consequences.”

The former Indiana mayor concluded his statement by warning against the possibility of “another endless war” and implicitly criticizing Donald Trump, who has been active on Twitter today.

“As we learn more in the coming days and weeks, one thing is clear: this must not be the start of another endless war,” Buttigieg said. “We must act wisely and deliberately, not capriciously or through Twitter.”

Updated

Elissa Slotkin, a former CIA analyst who now serves as a Democratic congresswoman, wrote in a tweet thread that the Trump administration must immediately confer with Congress about its strategy following the Suleimani strike.

Slotkin noted she served under two presidents, Barack Obama and George W Bush, who both decided against attacking Suleimani out of fear of retaliation. “The two administrations I worked for both determined that the ultimate ends didn’t justify the means,” Slotkin wrote. “The Trump Administration has made a different calculation. ...

“It is critical that the Administration has thought out the moves and counter-moves this attack will precipitate, and is prepared to protect our diplomats, service members, and citizens serving overseas. ...

“This Admin., like all others, has the right to act in self-defense. But the Administration must come to Congress immediately and consult,” Slotkin continued. “Congress needs to understand the Administration’s plan as soon as possible.”

Barbara Slavin, the director of the Future of Iran Initiative at the Atlantic Council, writes in a New York Times op-ed that the current state of US-Iranian relations is “tragic” and “the product of a series of strategic blunders”.

Slavin writes:

Few tears will be shed in many parts of the world for Maj Gen Qassem Suleimani, whose Quds force of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps ruthlessly spread Iranian influence and contributed to the deaths of thousands of Syrians, Iraqis and Iranians, as well as hundreds of American servicemen in Iraq, over the past decade and a half.

But revenge is not a strategy, and the killing of General Suleimani is a major – and incredibly risky – escalation with Iran, a pivotal country of some 80 million people that has been largely estranged from the United States for 40 years. It will cause more instability and the loss of more innocent lives. Any chances for American diplomacy with Iran are dead for the duration of the Trump presidency – if not longer. Instead of one nuclear proliferation crisis, with North Korea, there will most likely now be two, as the 2015 Iran nuclear deal completely collapses. The Sunni fundamentalists who killed Americans in their homeland – something Iran has not done so far – will rejoice. Russia and China will be happy to see the United States mired in the Middle East for the foreseeable future.

Updated

Most Democratic lawmakers have criticised Donald Trump’s authorisation of the Suleimani strike on the basis that the president did not seek congressional approval and acted without serious consideration of the potential consequences.

However, some Democrats, including the congresswoman Ayanna Pressley, have started accusing Trump of only choosing to attack Suleimani because he believed it would help his chances in this year’s presidential election.

Updated

The Trump administration reportedly intends to brief the congressional “gang of eight” on the Suleimani strike soon, after Democratic leaders complained they were not given advance notice of the attack.

The gang of eight includes the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, Senate minority leader, Chuck Schumer, House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, House minority leader, Kevin McCarthy, Senate intelligence committee chairman, Richard Burr, Senate intelligence committee ranking member, Mark Warner, House intelligence committee chairman, Adam Schiff, and House intelligence committee ranking member, Devin Nunes.

Schumer has said he did not receive advance notice of the strike, and Pelosi said in a statement last night that the action “was taken without the consultation of the Congress”.

Updated

Mitra Jalali Nelson, an Iranian-Korean city council member in St Paul, Minnesota, posted a moving tweet thread last night in response to the killing of Qassem Suleimani.

The city council member, who is one of only a handful of Iranian-Americans currently serving in elected office, said that fallout from the 9/11 attacks had scared many members of her community away from political engagement.

“For so many Persian kids & Iranian-American families in your lives today, this news has us sick and terrified. It isn’t just political analysis & viral Twitter takes to us. It is about a lifetime of broken U.S. Iran policy shaping a volatile current we have swum in for decades,” Jalali Nelson wrote.

“Without knowing what will happen or plunging into speculation what I can tell you on a human level is that this is a sickening, sad & terribly dangerous moment in our history,” she continued. “We need your solidarity. We need your congressional action, popular action, anything for #NoWarWithIran.”

Michael Morell, the former acting and deputy CIA director, predicted there would be “dead civilian Americans” as a result of the killing of Qassem Suleimani.

“Suleimani was an evil genius, he had a lot of American blood on his hands,” Morell told CBS News. “The world is a better place without him. The problem is that comes at a very high cost.

“Number one, there will be dead Americans, dead civilian Americans, as a result of this. Possibly over the next few days in any place where Iran has its proxies. Iraq is the most likely place, but also Lebanon, Bahrain, other places in the Middle East.”

Morell also predicted that Iran’s proxies would “conduct a terrorist strike that kills a senior American official”. He added that the attack could take place “anywhere in the world”, including potentially on US soil.

Updated

Anti-US protests are sweeping Iran, as supporters of general Qassem Suleimani take to the streets to burn American flags and chant: “Down with USA!”

One man praised Suleimani as a “self-giving person” and another attacked America as a “terrorist state”.

Updated

In a new tweet, Donald Trump suggested the Iraqi government was acting ungrateful to the US after American forces launched a drone strike in Baghdad, killing the Iranian general Qassem Suleimani.

The Iraqi prime minister said in a statement earlier today that the drone attack represented “a flagrant violation of Iraqi sovereignty and a dangerous escalation”.

Updated

One of Donald Trump’s congressional allies, Lindsey Graham, said he was briefed on the imminent drone strike that killed Suleimani when he visited the US president at his Florida resort earlier this week.

Graham’s admission is notable considering Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic speaker of the House, has suggested she was not given advance notice of the strike.

“[T]his action was taken without the consultation of the Congress,” Pelosi said in a statement last night. “The full Congress must be immediately briefed on this serious situation and on the next steps under consideration by the administration, including the significant escalation of the deployment of additional troops to the region.”

Updated

The chairman of Britain’s foreign affairs committee in the last parliament has suggested that the UK government was not aware that the US was going to carry out an airstrike attempting to kill Suleimani.

Conservative MP Tom Tugendhat said “the purpose of having allies is that we can surprise our enemies and not each other”.

“I would urge the US administration to share much more closely with allies, particularly those who are fighting alongside in the region, including us,” he told the BBC News channel.

Updated

UN secretary general pleads for restraint

The world “cannot afford” another war in the Gulf, according to the UN secretary general, Antonio Guterres, who has issued a statement calling for leaders to “exercise restraint”.

Farhan Haq, deputy spokesman for the secretary general, said:

The secretary general has consistently advocated for de-escalation in the Gulf. He is deeply concerned with the recent escalation.

This is a moment in which leaders must exercise maximum restraint. The world cannot afford another war in the Gulf.

Updated

In Israel, the army has closed the Mount Hermon ski resort on the annexed Golan Heights, a disputed territory which borders Syria and Lebanon.

Fighters from the Iranian-backed Lebanese Shia group Hezbollah, Israel’s bitter foe with which it fought a devastating war in 2006, are deployed on the other side of the armistice line.

The AFP press agency reports that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu cut short a foreign visit while his defence minister, Naftali Bennett, chaired a meeting of security chiefs, including the heads of the army, the national security council and the Mossad intelligence agency.

United Nations Interim Forces in Lebanon (UNIFIL) armoured vehicles patrol the area around the southern Lebanese town of Kfar Kila on the border with Israel on January 3.
United Nations Interim Forces in Lebanon (Unifil) armoured vehicles patrol the area around the southern Lebanese town of Kfar Kila on the border with Israel. Photograph: Ali Dia/AFP via Getty Images

Updated

Royal Jordanian Airlines has suspended flights to Baghdad airport due to the security situation in the Iraqi capital, according to Reuters.

The state carrier, which has 18 scheduled flights every week to Baghdad, said its flights to other Iraqi cities were not affected and operating normally.

Updated

We’d like to hear from US citizens in Iraq about their situation following embassy advice to leave the country.

We would like to hear from you if you are a US citizen in Iraq, or if you know someone who has been affected by the order to evacuate.

You can get in touch by filling in the encrypted form contained in this link and below, anonymously if you wish.

So what next? The word “asymmetric” is being used quite a bit by experts and those familiar with Middle East geopolitics to describe the likely response Iran will take. In short, it won’t be a military one in the conventional sense.

Updated

Qassem Suleimani had the status of a national hero even among secular Iranians and his death could act as a rallying cry, writes Mohammad Ali Shabani, a doctoral researcher at Soas University of London.

He writes in a piece for the Guardian:

... at a time when his unprecedented sanctions had stirred unrest inside Iran, the political elite has just been handed a rallying cry. The strike on Suleimani, whose status approached that of national icon, will harden popular sentiment against the US while simultaneously shoring up the regime.

For all his crowing about the decisive blow dealt to an insolent enemy, Trump may be about to discover that the problem with martyrs is that they live forever.

Iranians mourn during an anti-US demonstration to condemn the killing of Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) Lieutenant general and commander of the Quds Force Qaaem Soleimani, after Friday prayers in Tehran, Iran.
Iranians mourn during an anti-US demonstration to condemn the killing of Qassem Suleimani, after Friday prayers in Tehran. Photograph: Rouzbeh Fouladi/Zuma Wire/Rex/Shutterstock

Updated

Trump: Suleimani should have been killed years ago

Donald Trump has been on Twitter again, this time saying that Suleimani “should have been taken out years ago” and that he was “both hated and feared” within Iran.

This is Ben Quinn picking up the blog from Aamna Mohdin

Updated

The chairman of the foreign affairs committee in the last parliament has suggested the UK government did not know the US was going to carry out an airstrike to kill Suleimani.

Tom Tugendhat told BBC News: “Well I’ve long believed that the purpose of having allies is that we can surprise our enemies and not each other, and it’s been a pattern, sadly, which has been a bit of a shame, that the US administration of late has not shared with us and that is a matter of concern.

“I would urge the US administration to share much more closely with allies, particularly those who are fighting alongside in the region, including us.”

He added: “But this is a tactical point. A strategic point is that the United States has rocked the regime much more than for example the death of Osama bin Laden rocked the jihadist movement. This is a much more significant incident.”

Tugendhat said the airstrike “will doubtless have consequences”.

Updated

US secretary of state says airstrike on Suleimani 'saved American lives'

The US secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, has said the airstrikes that killed Qassem Suleimani “saved American lives”.

Speaking on CNN, Pompeo said the Iranian general was “actively plotting in the region to take action, big actions he described it, that would have put thousands, if not hundreds American lives at risk”.

Pompeo said the airstrike was driven by “an intelligence-based assessment”, adding: “The American people also know the history of Qassem Suleimani. Hundreds of American lives on his hands too.”

He added: “Last night was the time we needed to strike to make sure that this imminent attack that he was working actively was disrupted.”

When asked if there was any imminent threat to US homeland, Pompeo said: “These were threats located in the region.”

Pompeo went on to say that Donald Trump has shown “enormous restraint to date”, but added the government had to act because “the risk of doing nothing was enormous. Intelligence community made that assessment.”

You can watch the full interview below.

Updated

Here’s Donald Trump’s latest tweet on the crisis.

Updated

The Liberal Democrats have criticised Donald Trump for “radically and recklessly” escalating tensions in the Middle East.

The Lib Dem acting leader, Ed Davey, said: “Iran is governed by a brutal regime which has been openly hostile to the west.

“Donald Trump has yet again radically and recklessly escalated tensions in an area where peacekeeping was already on a knife edge.

“There is a real danger this will stoke further conflict, undermining peace and stability in the region. Given the severity of the crisis, the prime minister must make a statement about the UK’s position immediately.

“The UK should not automatically follow whatever position the Trump administration takes, but work with a broader group of concerned states at the United Nations.”

Updated

The US assassination of Qassem Suleimani may have dealt a final blow to hopes of keeping the Iranian nuclear deal alive until the American elections next year, European diplomats fear.

There is also concern that the Iraqi parliament will seek to expel the 5,000 US troops from Iraq with unpredictable consequences for the region, including the fight against Islamic State.

These private concerns were voiced amid public European calls for all sides to de-escalate the crisis, appeals that are unlikely to be heeded in Tehran, which is intent on some form of reprisal.

In a statement that neither condemned nor condoned the killing of Suleimani, the UK foreign secretary, Dominic Raab, said: “We have always recognised the aggressive threat posed by the Iranian Quds force led by Qassem Suleimani. Following his death, we urge all parties to de-escalate. Further conflict is in none of our interests.”

France’s European minister, Amélie de Montchalin, also called for calm. Speaking on French radio, she said any military escalation was always dangerous. “At European level, we have to work in collective multilateral frameworks and prevent the powers, one against the other, from playing their game in an unpredictable manner,” she said. “Our role is not to stand on one side or the other, it is to speak with everyone.”

She said the French president, Emmanuel Macron, would be consulting widely on Friday

Mike Pompeo has said the US remains committed to de-escalation with Iran in a series of tweets.

The US secretary of state says he has spoken to the British foreign secretary, Dominic Raab, China’s top diplomat, Yang Jiechi, and Germany’s minister of foreign affairs, Heiko Maas, about the US decision to kill Suleimani, who commanded Iran’s elite Quds force.

Updated

Here’s a report by the Guardian’s economics correspondent, Richard Partington, on what rising oil prices mean for the escalating crisis in the Middle East and the world economy.

Iraq’s military has condemned the killing of Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the Iraqi paramilitary leader who died alongside Qassem Suleiman, Iran’s top general.

The Iraqi military said it was a clear breach of the US mandate in Iraq, according to a report by Reuters.

“The Joint Operations Command mourns the hero martyr ... who was martyred last night in a cowardly and treacherous attack carried out by American aircraft near Baghdad international airport,” it said in a statement.

“We affirm that what happened is a flagrant violation of Iraqi sovereignty and a clear breach by the American forces of their mandate which is exclusively to fight Islamic State and provide advice and assistance to Iraqi security forces.”

Updated

The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has defended the US airstrike that killed Qassem Suleimani.

In a statement, Netanyahu said: “Just as Israel has the right of self-defence, the United States has exactly the same right.

“Qassem Suleimani is responsible for the death of American citizens and many other innocent people. He was planning more such attacks.

“President Trump deserves all the credit for acting swiftly, forcefully and decisively.
Israel stands with the United States in its just struggle for peace, security and self-defence.”

Updated

Experts have warned that the strike on Iran’s top general puts the US and allies, including the UK, at risk.

Ian Bond, foreign policy director at the Centre for European Reform, tweeted that the airstrike was a “big escalation” by Trump.

Dr Jack Watling, research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, told the news agency PA Media that the attack was “very significant” because it was a “declared assassination” outside a declared armed conflict.

But he said that Iran was not likely to want to provoke a war with the US. “The significance of this strike is that it is a declared assassination of a senior officer in another state with whom the US is not in a declared armed conflict and conducted on the territory of a third party,” he said.

“That’s a very significant development in and of itself. Ultimately Iran does not want to provoke a full-scale conflict. I would expect there will be attacks on US forces, but they will be conducted with care.”

Watling added if the UK was seen by Iran to be participating in US actions it could lead to the capture or arrest of British citizens in the region. “The Iranians do not draw a direct line between the UK and US. However, if the UK is perceived to be participating in US actions then they will directly target UK interests,” he said.

He added: “The UK is not automatically the first target. Citizens in Iraq, Syria and Lebanon would certainly potentially be at risk. Dual nationalities in Iran will certainly be at risk of arrest under espionage charges.”

Updated

John Bolton said he hoped the assassination of Qassem Suleimani was “the first step to regime change in Tehran”.

The former US national security adviser tweeted his congratulations to all involved in assassinating Iran’s top general, describing the strike as long in the making.

Updated

The UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial killing has said the targeted killings of Qassem Suleimani and Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis violates international human rights law.

In a Twitter thread, Agnès Callamard said the US would need to prove the individual targeted constituted an imminent threat to others. “An individual’s past involvement in ‘terrorist’ attacks is not sufficient to make his targeting for killing lawful,” she said.

On the White House statement about the airstrike, Callamard said: “The statement fails to mention the other individuals killed alongside Suleimani. Collateral? Probably. Unlawful. Absolutely.”

Updated

Jeremy Corbyn criticises 'the US assassination' of Iran’s top general

Jeremy Corbyn, the current leader of the Labour party who is set to step down following a Conservative landslide at the last general election, has said “the US assassination” of the general “is an extremely serious and dangerous escalation of conflict in the Middle East with global significance”.

In a statement, Corbyn notes: “The UK government should urge restraint on the part of both Iran and the US, and stand up to the belligerent actions and rhetoric coming from the United States.”

Updated

Here’s a roundup of reactions from Labour leadership hopefuls to a US airstrike in Baghdad killing Qassem Suleimani, Iran’s top general.

Nick Robinson, BBC’s Radio 4’s Today programme host, described the event as “a very early test for those who want to be leader of the opposition”.

Keir Starmer, the current frontrunner to win the Labour leadership, tweeted that the incident is “an extremely serious situation” and called for all sides to de-escalate tensions.

The Labour MP Lisa Nandy, who is also considering a run to replace Jeremy Corbyn, described the airstrike as “a very dangerous moment”. She added: “Seventeen years after the catastrophic decision to go to war in Iraq, violence still rages every day. World leaders must stand up to Trump. The last thing we need is another all-out war.”

Jess Phillips, the Labour MP who is expected to formally declare her bid to lead the Labour party, said: “Reckless foreign policy does not show strength. It’s not a game. The consequences of the escalating tensions between the US and Iran are not to be underestimated, not just once again on the civilians in the region but on the whole world.”

Robinson asked Melanie Onn, former Labour MP who recently lost her seat but is supporting Phillips: “Should people like Jess Phillips take a sort of Corbyn stand, or should she be wary of those who criticise Mr Corbyn for seeming to back the wrong side in international conflict.” In response, Onn said: “I don’t think that anyone who is trying to emulate somebody else is the right person for the Labour party.”

Updated

Oil prices jump after killing of Suleimani

Oil prices soared early on Friday morning after the US airstrike that killed the top Iranian commander, increasing tensions between the two powers.

Oil prices rose over $2 a barrel, while gold and other safe-haven assets jumped on Friday, Reuters reported, adding “traders were clearly spooked” by Qassem Suleimani’s death.

The news agency also reported that foreign oil companies were evacuating dozens of employees with US citizenship from Basra in Iraq, citing company sources.

Updated

UK foreign secretary: 'we urge all parties to de-escalate'

The British foreign secretary, Dominic Raab, has urged “all parties to de-escalate” after the US airstrike that killed the Iranian general Qassem Suleimani.

In a written statement, Raab said: “We have always recognised the aggressive threat posed by the Iranian Quds force led by Qassem Suleimani. Following his death, we urge all parties to de-escalate.

“Further conflict is in none of our interests.”

Updated

China has called for all sides to exercise calm and restraint.

Foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang called for peace and stability in the Middle East as well as respect for Iraq’s independence and territorial integrity, AP reported.

The spokesman said China had always opposed the use of force in international relations and warned against the further escalation of tensions.

Updated

Iraq will hold an emergency parliament session on Saturday to discuss the US airstrike in Baghdad that killed Iran’s top military commander and Iraqi officials, Reuters reports.

Iraq’s deputy parliament speaker, Hassan al-Kaabi, said it was time to put an end to US recklessness and arrogance, adding that Saturday’s session would be dedicated to taking “decisive decisions that put an end to US presence inside Iraq”.

The outgoing prime minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi had called for an emergency session, saying the US presence in Iraq is limited to training forces to fight terrorism. He described the attack that killed Qassem Suleimani and the Iraqi officials as a “violation” of conditions for the US troop presence.

Updated

Tom Fletcher, a former UK ambassador to Lebanon, has said Qassem Suleimani was a “much more powerful figure than Osama bin Laden or Baghdadi, where at the moment of their own deaths their power was in decline. His [power] was growing, as it has been really since the US invasion of Iraq.”

He added that it was “hard to overstate the potential impact of this moment”.

Fletcher said Iran had been “goading Washington, goading Donald Trump”, adding: “And of course, we don’t just have erratic leaders at the moment in Tehran, we have an erratic leader in Washington as well.”

When asked how Iran could retaliate, Fletcher said: “The strategic response if they’re feeling rational is probably to consolidate their position in Iraq, but elsewhere they have many more dangerous options including assassinations themselves or proxy wars or asymmetric attacks like the ones against the Saudi oil facilities.”

Updated

What does Qassem Suleimani’s death mean for the region? The assassination threatens to open a grisly new chapter in Middle East, writes the Guardian’s Julian Borger.

In his analysis, Borger notes Suleimani’s death dispensed with the proxy war between Iran and the US, describing the airstrike as a “dagger thrust into the heart of Iranian power”.

The leader of the Revolutionary Guards’ Quds force was a bearded icon of the Islamic Republic, arguably its second most powerful figure after the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Killing him was a blunt act of war against a substantial regional power. Its half-million-strong armed services are the most potent military force the US has faced since confronting the Chinese People’s Volunteer Army more than 60 years ago in Korea.

There was nothing inevitable about this conflict. Six years ago the legacy of loathing left by the Islamic Revolution began to fade. There was a multilateral agreement to curb Iran’s nuclear programme in 2015, and an unspoken mutual non-aggression pact with Suleimani during the shared campaign against Islamic State in Syria and Iraq.

“For a while when we were doing counter-Isis operations, we essentially had a gentleman’s agreement with him, that his forces wouldn’t target us and we wouldn’t target him,” said Kirsten Fontenrose, the former senior director for the Gulf in Trump’s national security council.

But with Trump’s abrogation of the 2015 nuclear deal and the collapse of the Isis caliphate, largely removing a common foe, it was Suleimani who emerged as the US’s arch-enemy.

“He was a target of opportunity,” Fontenrose said. “When you know a super-bad guy is going to be somewhere that you can strike and you know you won’t get the opportunity for another year.”

Updated

Richard Ratcliffe, the husband of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who is detained in Iran, warned the relationship between Iran and the US and UK was rapidly deteriorating.

He told ITV’s Good Morning Britain: “Things are getting much worse again between the US and Iran, but also between all of us and Iran.”

He added: “I sit here partly worried for what that means for Nazanin, partly worried what that means for my in-laws, sat in their ordinary living room in Tehran where they’re all really worried.”

In December, Zaghari-Ratcliffe announced she would be going on hunger strike in solidarity with another dual national being held in Iran. Kylie Moore-Gilbert, a British-Australian academic, started an open-ended hunger strike six days ago in protest at being sentenced to 10 years on espionage charges.

Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who was jailed four years ago, and other imprisoned dual nationals in Tehran believe they are being held as political hostages.

Updated

Israeli prime minister cuts short Greece visit

Israeli’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has cut short a visit to Greece following the killing. The prime minister’s office said he was returning to Israel early “to follow developments” but did not say when.

Israel, which has fought an increasingly overt war against Iranian forces in neighbouring Syria, is preparing itself for a potential military retaliation from Tehran to the US attack.

Netanyahu was in Athens following the deal signed by Greece, Cyprus and Israel on Thursday to build a 1,900km (1,180-mile) subsea pipeline to carry natural gas from the eastern Mediterranean’s rapidly developing gas fields to Europe.

Updated

Former Middle East minister Alistair Burt has described the US airstrike that killed Iran’s Gen Qaseem Suleimani as “extremely serious” and warned it could spark a huge escalation.

He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “There is no agreement as to a base of the confrontations in the region. There is a completely different narrative put forward by the Iranians for what is happening in the region to that which is put forward by the United States and others – there is no meeting between to two.”

Burt added that the airstrike could cause “a huge potential escalation” of the conflict, of which “the consequences are unknown”. He said that it was “very important now to concentrate on what happens next, and for everybody involved diplomatically to do everything they can to try and defuse the situation”. He added: “It’s extremely serious.”

Asked whether the UK government would have been told about the US government’s airstrike plans before they happened, Burt replied: “I doubt it.”

In July, Burt wrote a comment piece for the Guardian warning that the next prime minister had to become an expert on Iran, fast. He wrote:

The worry is that crises escalate and mistakes occur. Iran is responding to the economic pressure, particularly the ban on oil sales, by reminding the world of Gulf vulnerability. Tit-for-tat moves on shipping will sooner or later lead to a fatal confrontation – we would be wise to work with others on an escort system, not to exacerbate, but reduce the risk by preventing more seizures. These events give credibility to those calling for an increase in defence spending, particularly on smart deterrents.

Updated

Who is Qassem Suleimani? Here’s a useful explainer on the leader of the Revolutionary Guards’ Quds force by Michael Safi, the Guardian’s international correspondent, based in the Middle East:

Qassem Suleimani had become well known among Iranians in past years and was sometimes discussed as a future president. Yet the leader of the Revolutionary Guards’ Quds force was still a relatively obscure figure outside a region that he may have done more than anyone to reshape.

“He was more important than the president, spoke to all factions in Iran, had a direct line to the supreme leader and was in charge of Iran’s regional policy,” said Dina Esfandiary, a fellow at the Century Foundation think tank. “It doesn’t get more important and influential than that.”

The shadowy Quds force are tasked with spreading Iran’s influence abroad and, in the past two decades, Suleimani, 62, had extraordinary success doing so. In the chaos and death that followed the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq and the 2011 Syrian revolution, Suleimani saw opportunity, pouring in men and money to build a crescent of pro-Iran forces stretching across the region from Lebanon in the west to Yemen in the south.

Read more below

Updated

US embassy in Baghdad has urged American citizens to depart Iraq immediately

The United States embassy in Baghdad has called on all it citizens to depart Iraq immediately on Friday. The order follows the US airstrike killing Iranian Quds Force leader Qassem Soleimani and Iraqi militia commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis in an air strike.

“Due to heightened tensions in Iraq and the region, the US embassy urges American citizens to heed the January 2020 travel advisory and depart Iraq immediately. US citizens should depart via airline while possible, and failing that, to other countries via land,” it said in a statement.

Updated

Iranian general Qassem Suleimani killed in Baghdad drone strike ordered by Trump

Good morning. I’m Aamna Mohdin and thank you for joining our rolling coverage of air strike, ordered by the US president, Donald Trump, that killed powerful Iranian general Qassem Suleimani.

Suleimani’s death is widely being seen as a dramatic escalation of the continued struggle between Washington and Tehran for influence across the region. The general, who ran Iranian military operations in Iraq and Syria, was hit while being driven from Baghdad airport by local allies from the Popular Mobilisation Units (PMU).

Julian Borger, the Guardian’s world affairs editor, and Martin Chulov, who covers the Middle East for the Guardian, have the latest on the airstrike:

General Suleimani was actively developing plans to attack American diplomats and service members in Iraq and throughout the region,” a Pentagon statement said. “This strike was aimed at deterring future Iranian attack plans. The United States will continue to take all necessary action to protect our people and our interests wherever they are around the world.”

Minutes before the statement Trump tweeted a US flag without comment. Later, the White House put out a statement saying the strike was a “decisive defensive action” carried out “at the direction of the president”.

Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, ordered three days of mourning and vowed that the US would face “severe revenge” for the killing.

Minutes before the White House released its statement, Trump tweeted a US flag without comment.

The Iranian foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, released the following statement on Twitter:

Updated

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Matthieu Lucas from Matt’s Guitar Shop in Paris gives Guitar World the lowdown on which guitars could likely break the Gilmour record one day
Guitar World
Guitar World
'Even Disney Sometimes Forgets': The Hannah Montana Special Came Together Thanks To A+ Dolly Parton Advice
How she got "The Best of Both Worlds."
Cinemablend
Cinemablend
Kids Pointed Out A 'Plot Hole' In The Parent Trap, And Now The Internet Is Arguing About Car Safety
It's not a plot hole, but it is a good point.
Cinemablend
Cinemablend
Story Behind Celia Walden's Viral 2022 Photo Explained—and Why It Struck a Nerve on Piers Morgan's Show
Piers Morgan storms off Uncensored after HSTikkyTokky shows a 2022 Instagram of Celia Walden, reigniting scrutiny of the manosphere and Morgan's persona.
International Business Times UK
International Business Times UK
Obama’s portrait was replaced by Trump’s assassination painting, but its new location is what’s setting the internet on fire
The Grand Foyer now has a new centerpiece.
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