Reuters, Baghdad :
Iran threatened to retaliate after a U.S. air strike in Baghdad on Friday killed Qassem Soleimani, commander of Iran’s elite Quds Force and architect of its growing military influence in the Middle East.
Soleimani, a 62-year-old general, was regarded as the second most powerful figure in Iran after Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
The overnight attack, authorized by President Donald Trump, marked a dramatic escalation in a “shadow war” in the Middle East between Iran and the United States and its allies, principally Israel and Saudi Arabia.
Top Iraqi militia commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, an adviser to Soleimani, was also killed in the attack.
Longrunning U.S.-Iranian hostilities escalated sharply last week with an attack on the U.S. embassy in Iraq by pro-Iranian militiamen following a U.S. air raid on the Kataib Hezbollah militia, founded by Muhandis.
Responding to Friday’s attack, Iraq’s prime minister said Washington had violated a deal for keeping U.S. troops in his country.
Israel put its army on high alert and U.S. allies in Europe including Britain, France and Germany voiced concerns about an escalation in tensions.
The Pentagon said the “U.S. military has taken decisive defensive action to protect U.S. personnel abroad by killing Qassem Soleimani”. Trump ordered the strike to disrupt future Iranian attack plans, it said.
U.S. officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Soleimani was killed in a drone strike. Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said he died in an attack by U.S. helicopters.
The U.S. embassy in Baghdad urged all American citizens to depart Iraq immediately. U.S. employees of foreign oil companies in Basra were preparing to leave the country, but Iraq’s oil ministry said output and exports were unaffected.
Oil prices jumped more than $3 a barrel over concern about disruption to Middle East supplies.
Khamenei said harsh revenge awaited the “criminals” who killed Soleimani and said his death would double resistance against the United States and Israel.
In statements carried by state media, he called for three days of national mourning and appointed Soleimani’s deputy, Brigadier General Esmail Ghaani, to replace him as Quds Force head.
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, speaking on Fox News, defended the strike as lawful, adding that the risk of doing nothing regarding Iran was enormous.
While the United States did not seek war with Iran it would not stand by and see American lives put at risk, he said.
As leader of the Quds Force, the foreign arm of the Revolutionary Guards, Soleimani had a key role in fighting in Syria and Iraq.
Over two decades he was at the forefront of projecting the Islamic Republic’s military influence across the Middle East, acquiring celebrity status at home and abroad.
Iranian state television presenters wore black and broadcast footage of Soleimani peering through binoculars across a desert and greeting a soldier, and of Muhandis speaking to followers.
