Shortly after US President Donald Trump said he was not seeking war with Iran, Washington struck again in Iraq. The US military conducted an air strike on Friday evening January 3 against a Shia militia on the road to Taji, north of Baghdad (Iraq), public television reported.
There were "dead and wounded" in a raid on a convoy of Hachd al-Chaabi, a coalition of pro-Iran paramilitaries now integrated into the Iraqi state, a police source told Agence France Presse (AFP) ). Hachd al-Chaabi, for his part, claims that the raid targeting his fighters hit a medical convoy and not leaders of the Shiite faction.
The day before, it was an American "precision shot from a drone" which had plunged the whole world into uncertainty, raising fear "a new war in the Gulf" that "the world cannot afford", according to the United Nations (UN).
Also operated in the middle of the night, the American bombing had pulverized two cars that were leaving Baghdad airport. Inside, Qassem Soleimani, the architect of Iranian strategy in the Middle East, and Abou Mehdi al-Mouhandis, the Iranian man in Baghdad, were killed instantly.
Iran pleads right to exercise self defense
Iran told the UN Security Council on Friday that it reserves the right to exercise self-defense under international law after the killings. In a letter, his representative to the UN, Majid Takht Ravanchi, writes that the assassination of Qassem Soleimani "is an obvious example of state terrorism and, as a criminal act, constitutes a flagrant violation of the fundamental principles of the international law and, in particular, those stipulated in the Charter of the United Nations ".
The escalation between Tehran and Washington continues, each believing that it is entitled to "defend itself". Trump said he ordered the elimination of Soleimani to "stop" a war and not to start one, saying that an attack on Americans was "imminent". "We are not looking for regime change" in Iran, he said.
The United States made its "biggest mistake" in killing Soleimani, warned the Supreme National Security Council, Iran’s highest security body. "These criminals will face harsh revenge in the right place at the right time." Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and President Hassan Rohani have also called for reprisals.
With AFP and Reuters
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