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Friday, 29 March 2024

Killing Iranian commander 'enormous escalation': Biden

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Killing Iranian commander 'enormous escalation': Biden
Killing Iranian commander 'enormous escalation': Biden

2020 Democratic presidential contender Joe Biden in Iowa on Friday said President Donald Trump had put the U.S. on the "brink of a new kind of conflict," after Trump authorized the attack on the top Iranian commander in Iraq.

Iran promised vengeance after a U.S. air strike in Baghdad on Friday killed Qassem Soleimani, Tehran's most prominent military commander and the architect of its growing influence in the Middle East.

Soleimani, a 62-year-old general who headed the elite Quds Force, was regarded as the second most powerful figure in Iran after Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

The overnight attack, authorised by President Donald Trump, was a dramatic escalation in a "shadow war" in the Middle East between Iran and the United States and its allies, principally Israel and Saudi Arabia.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the strike aimed to disrupt an "imminent attack" that would have endangered Americans in the Middle East.

Democratic critics said the Republican president had raised the risk of more violence in a dangerous region.

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