Cameras "miles in the sky", a countdown and then "boom": Donald Trump told the last moments of the powerful Iranian general Qassem Soleimani, killed by the American army in a strike that "shook the world ".
The story was told by the President of the United States on Friday evening to Republican Party donors gathered in his residence in Mar-a-Lago, Florida, for one of the many private fundraising dinners he chains.
A recording broadcast by CNN
The CNN channel broadcast on Saturday an audio recording (in English) which it has obtained, in which we hear the billionaire speak of the high ranking officer of the Revolutionary Guards, the ideological army of the Islamic Republic of Iran, eliminated January 3 at Baghdad airport with his Iraqi lieutenant Abou Mehdi al-Mouhandis. "He was supposed to be invincible," he said.
According to him, before the strike that targeted him in the Iraqi capital, "he was saying bad things about our country". "He said, like, 'we're going to attack your country, we're going to kill your people'. I said, "How long do we have to listen to this shit?" "
"And then suddenly, boom"
Donald Trump then reproduced the scene, imitating the soldiers who addressed him while he followed the operation simultaneously from the United States. “They said, 'Sir (…) They have two minutes and eleven seconds to live. They are in the car. They are in an armored vehicle that is in motion. Sir, they have about a minute to live, Sir… 30 seconds, 10, 9, 8… ”And then suddenly, boom. "They are no longer there, sir." "The American president was delighted to have eliminated" two for the price of one "(Qassem Soleimani and Abou Mehdi al-Mouhandis).
He admitted that the strike had "shaken the world", but, he said, "he deserved to be hit hard". "Because he was mean, he killed (...) hundreds of thousands of people and thousands of Americans," he added about the Iranian general.
Iran retaliated a few days later by firing missiles against American targets in Iraq, but did not kill. In the wake of these reprisals, the Iranian army, however, shot down "by mistake" a Ukrainian airliner departing from Tehran, killing 176 people.
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