- A host of world leaders, including from Russia, Turkey, and several European countries, condemned the US drone strike that killed Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani, the powerful leader of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, late Thursday.
- Iranian leaders promised “forceful revenge” against the US, and Iraqi leaders said the strike violated the country’s sovereignty and international laws.
- The United Nations’ special rapporteur for extrajudicial killings said the attack “most likely” violated international law in part because the US hadn’t faced an “imminent threat” and the strike killed at least six other people.
- Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has long treated Iran as an existential threat to Israel, praised President Donald Trump’s move.
A host of world leaders, including from Russia, Turkey, and several European countries, condemned the US drone strike that killed Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani, the leader of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, as he left Baghdad International Airport late Thursday.
But Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has long treated Iran as an existential threat to Israel, praised President Donald Trump’s move.
Iran-backed protesters surrounded and vandalised the US Embassy in Baghdad this week following US airstrikes in Iraq that killed about two dozen members of an Iran-backed militia. Those airstrikes were retaliation for the killing of an American civilian contractor in Kirkuk, Iraq, a few days before.
Agnès Callamard, the United Nations’ special rapporteur for extrajudicial killings, condemned Thursday’s attack, arguing that it “most likely” violated international law in part because the US hadn’t faced an “imminent threat” and the strike killed at least six other people.
Read the article by Eliza Relman in Business Insider Australia.