UN’S report whitewashed Soleimani’s record: US

WASHINGTON: The United States on Wednesday blasted a UN finding that a US drone strike that killed a top Iranian general was unlawful, saying the report whitewashed Qasem Soleimani’s record.

“It takes a special kind of intellectual dishonesty to issue a report condemning the United States for acting in self-defence while whitewashing General Soleimani’s notorious past as one of the world’s deadliestterrorists,”statedepartmentspokeswoman Morgan Ortagus said.

“This tendentious and tedious report undermines human rights by giving a pass to terrorists and it proves once again why America was right to leave” the UN Human Rights Council, she said.

Agnes Callamard, the UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, concluded on Tuesday that Soleimani’s killing in January at the Baghdad airport violated the UN charter.

The US had provided no evidence that an imminent atack against US interest was being planned, she wrote, calling it an “arbitrary killing.”

“Soleimaniwasinchargeofiran’smilitarystrategy, and actions, in Syria and Iraq. But absent an actual imminent threat to life, the course of action taken by the US was unlawful,” she wrote.

Separately, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo demanded justice over the killing of a prominent Iraqi security and highlighted threats against him by Iran-linked groups.

“In the days leading up to his death he was repeatedly threatened by Iran backed armed groups,” Pompeo told a news conference in Washington, without explicitly blaming Tehran.

Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa Al Kadhimi talked tough ater the killing of a high-profile analyst and government adviser, pledging to hunt down his assailants and curb the actions of armed groups.

But the face-off between the Us-friendly Iraqi leader and powerful Iran-backed militias whom his entourage privately blames for Monday’s murder of Hisham Al Hashemi indicates how difficult this will be.

A series of bold moves by Kadhimi in his first two months in office, including two unsuccessful arrest raids against militias, showed the limits of his power in the face of hostile groups with influence across state institutions, according to government officials, politicians and diplomats.