US President Trump defends decision to kill Iran’s Soleimani
US President Donald Trump on Monday defended his
decision to kill Iranian commander Qassem Soleimani, contending Soleimani posed
an impending threat to the United States.
“The Fake News Media and their Democrat Partners are
working hard to determine whether or not the future attack by terrorist
Soleimani was ‘eminent’ or not, & was my team in agreement.” Trump wrote,
presumably misspelling “imminent.”
The answer to both is a strong YES, but it doesn’t
really matter because of his horrible past!” Trump said in the post.
In mid-October Soleimani instructed his Shia militia
allies in Iraq to step up attacks on US targets in the country using
sophisticated weapons provided by Iran, according to Reuters citing two militia
commanders and two security sources briefed on the gathering.
Soleimani was “directly responsible” for the death
of 603 US service members, in addition to thousands wounded, according to US
Vice President Mike Pence.
In Syria Soleimani “continued support to the
murderous regime…aiding and abetting [Syrian President] Assad’s brutal abuses
against the Syrian people,” Pence said in a tweet on January 4.
The US Treasury Department sanctioned Soleimani in
relation to “human rights abuses in Syria, for his role as the Commander of the
IRGC-QF, the primary conduit for Iran’s support to the Syrian General
Intelligence Directorate (GID),” according to a May 2011 statement.
The Iranian military chief was also behind the
attempted assassination of Saudi Arabian ambassador to the US Adel al-Jubeir in
2011 and oversaw “a terrorist attack attempt on American soil,” according to
Pence.
