Iran

Iran designates US military ‘terrorists’ over Soleimani killing

Iran has designated the U.S. armed forces a terrorist group over the killing of top commander General Qassem Soleimani. Iran’s lawmakers on Tuesday, January 7 unanimously approved the bill to designate the U.S. Army and Department of Defense as terrorist organizations, Tasnim news reported. The bill designates U.S. forces, Pentagon employees, affiliated organizations, and those who ordered Soleimani’s death, AFP reported. Soleimani, commander of the Quds Force – the IRGC’s external operations arm – was killed last week in a U.S. drone strike outside Baghdad International Airport. Killed with him was Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the head of the Kataib Hezbollah group and de facto commander of Iraq’s Hashd al-Shaabi militias. In April the Trump administration designated Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps a terrorist organization, the first such designation of a state’s armed forces. The U.S. designated the Quds Force a foreign terrorist organization a decade ago. Also on Tuesday, Ali Shamkhani, Secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council said 13 “revenge” scenarios had been drafted in response to the Soleimani’s killing. Soleimani was to be buried in his hometown of Kerman on Tuesday. The general’s killing has sparked a new crisis in the region, with Iran and its surrogate forces vowing revenge on …

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