Arrest warrant for Trump over Soleimani killing

An arrest warrant was issued yesterday for outgoing President Donald Trump in connection with the killing of an Iranian general and a powerful Iraqi militia leader last year, Iraq’s judiciary said. The warrant was issued by a judge in Baghdad’s investigative court tasked with probing the Washington-directed drone strike that killed General Qassim Soleimani and Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the court’s media office said. They were killed outside the capital’s airport last January. Al-Muhandis was the deputy leader of the state-sanctioned Popular Mobilisation Forces, an umbrella group composed of an array of militias, including Iranbacked groups, formed to fight the Islamic State group. Soleimani headed the expeditionary Quds force of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps. The arrest warrant was for a charge of premeditated murder, which carries the death penalty on conviction. It is unlikely to be carried out but symbolic in the last days of Trump’s presidency.