The killing of Iranian military leader Qasem Soleimani: What you need to readHere’s what you need to know to understand what this moment means in U.S.-Iran relations. What happened: President Trump ordered a drone strike near the Baghdad airport, killing Maj. Gen. Qasem Soleimani, one of Iran’s top military figures and leader of its special-operations forces abroad. How we got here: Tensions had been escalating between Iran and the United States since Trump pulled out of an Obama-era nuclear deal and spiked shortly before the airstrike. The strikes were carried out in response to the death of a U.S. contractor in a rocket attack against a military base in Kirkuk that the United States blamed on Kataib Hezbollah. The U.S. Embassy in Iraq warned U.S. citizens to leave “immediately.”Want to understand world news better?

Source: Washington Post January 04, 2020 23:19 UTC