A conclusion by the United Nations (UN) that the US’s assassination of Iranian commander Lieutenant General Qassem Soleimani was “unlawful” has drawn Washington’s ire.
On Wednesday, US State Department spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus called the report in which the UN’s top investigator of extrajudicial killings made the conclusion about the assassination of General Soleimani “tendentious and tedious.”
The assassination of General Soleimani, who was the Commander of the Quds Force of Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC), was carried out with a US drone strike in Baghdad on January 3.
The Iranian general, and a top Iraqi commander who was also martyred in the strike, enjoyed deep reverence among Muslim nations because of their endeavors in eliminating the Daesh terrorist group in the region, particularly in Iraq and Syria.
US President Donald Trump ordered the assassination.
Agnes Callamard, the UN’s special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, concluded in a report on Tuesday that the assassination was in breach of international law.
Callamard stressed that the targeted killing “violated the UN Charter” and said her report would be presented to the UN Human Rights Council session in Geneva on Thursday.
In response to the assassination, the IRGC fired volleys of ballistic missiles at a US airbase in Iraq on January 8. While Trump denied that the attack had caused any casualties, the US Defense Department said in an updated toll that at least 109 American soldiers received traumatic brain injuries in the attack.
After the assassination, Iraqi lawmakers approved a bill demanding the withdrawal of all foreign military forces from their country.
Iran has also issued an arrest warrant and asked Interpol for help in detaining the US president and several other US military and political leaders who were behind the assassination.
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