Trump boasts Iranian general’s death was ‘American justice’

TOLEDO, Ohio — President Donald Trump used his first campaign election rally of 2020 to argue that he served up “American justice” by ordering a drone strike to take out Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani, while jeering Democratic leaders for questioning his decision to carry out the attack without first consulting Congress.

Trump’s remarks on Thursday careened from mockery of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Rep. Adam Schiff, who heads the House Intelligence Committee, to a suggestion that he should have won the Nobel Prize, a preview of the sharp-edged reelection campaign that he will wage.

The president made his comments shortly after the Democratic-controlled House approved a resolution asserting that Trump must seek approval from Congress before engaging in further military action against Iran. Continue reading.

Exclusive: Informants in Iraq, Syria helped U.S. kill Iran’s Soleimani – sources

REUTERS – Iranian General Qassem Soleimani arrived at the Damascus airport in a vehicle with dark-tinted glass. Four soldiers from Iran’s Revolutionary Guards rode with him. They parked near a staircase leading to a Cham Wings Airbus A320, destined for Baghdad.

Neither Soleimani nor the soldiers were registered on the passenger manifesto, according to a Cham Wings airline employee who described the scene of their departure from the Syrian capital to Reuters. Soleimani avoided using his private plane because of rising concerns about his own security, said an Iraqi security source with knowledge of Soleimani’s security arrangements.

The passenger flight would be Soleimani’s last. Rockets fired from a U.S. drone killed him as he left the Baghdad airport in a convoy of two armored vehicles. Also killed was the man who met him at the airport: Abu Mahdi Muhandis, deputy head of Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), the Iraqi government’s umbrella group for the country’s militias. Continue reading.