Iran vows payback

Ayatollah says US killing of his top general will be avenged

IRAN has vowed “harsh retaliation” for a US air strike near Baghdad’s airport that killed Iran’s top general and the architect of its interventions across the Middle East, as tensions soared in the wake of the targeted killing.

The killing of Gen Qassem Soleimani, the head of Iran’s elite Quds Force, marks a major escalation in the standoff between Washington and Iran, which has careened from one crisis to another since President Donald Trump withdrew from the 2015 nuclear deal and imposed crippling sanctions.

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei warned that a “harsh retaliation is waiting” for the U.S. after the air strike, calling Soleimani the “international face of resistance.”

Khamenei declared three days of public mourning for the general’s death.

Iran also summoned the Swiss charges d’affaires, who represents US interests in Tehran, to protest the killing.

The killing, and any forceful retaliation by Iran, could ignite a conflict that engulfs the whole region, endangering American troops in Iraq, Syria and beyond.

Over the last two decades Soleimani had assembled a network of powerful and heavily armed allies stretching all the way to southern Lebanon, on Israel’s doorstep.

The Defense Department said it killed Soleimani because he “was actively developing plans to attack American diplomats and service members in Iraq and throughout the region.”

It also accused Soleimani of approving the orchestrated violent protests at the US Embassy in Baghdad earlier this week.

Iranian state television called Trump’s order to kill Soleimani “the biggest miscalculation by the US” since World War II.

“The people of the region will no longer allow Americans to stay,” it said.