Donald Trump on Soleimani killing: Iran targeted multiple US embassies
- Trump now says Iran targeted multiple US embassies
- Tells US news channel he thinks 4 embassies were in danger
- Iran-US tensions have placed Middle East on knife’s edge
President Donald Trump’s public remarks on the reason for a deadly, Jan. 3 drone strike that plunged the region into crisis have varied considerably in a span of days.
He first said the Iranians “looking to blow up our embassy” — he meant the one in Baghdad, Iraq.
Then, he claimed Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani, the powerful Iranian commander killed in the US strike near Baghdad airport, had been plotting attacks on several embassies.
And now, there’s a number. In an interview with Fox News, Trump said, “I can reveal that I believe it would’ve been four embassies.”
The killing of Qassem Soleimani infuriated Iran — thousands poured into the streets to mourn him — and the Middle East nation soon kept its promise to take revenge, attacking Iraqi bases housing US-led coalition personnel.
Iran has now admitted it shot down a passenger jet by mistake soon after the missile strikes, and has apologised profusely. 176 people, many of them Iranians, were killed.
Soon after the Iranian offensive, Trump said no Americans were hurt and that Tehran appeared to be standing down.
The alarming US-Iran military escalation was the culmination of a series of events that began with the killing of an American contractor — and the wounding of other US nationals — in an attack by an Iran-backed militia in Iraq.
Iran’s envoy to India told India Today TV in a recent interview that his country was “for peace and prosperity” in the Middle East.
He echoed a demand made by Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei: that US forces should leave the region
