Cool USA Facts!

On January 2nd, 2020, President Donald Trump ordered the drone assassination of Iranian General Qassem Soleimani 2, in a blatant act of war against Iran. Soleimani was a beloved figure to the Iranian people, his death sending shockwaves among residents, and a 3-day national mourning period was declared. Hillary Mann Leverett, a former White House National Security official, said the killing of Soleimani was a "declaration of war" on Iran, and is "equivalent to the Iranians assassinating the US defence secretary". The drone attack was part of several targeted US airstrikes, and comes in the wake of turmoil following another series of US airstrikes in Iraq and Syria which killed 25 members of the Iraqi Kataib Hezbollah militia, after which outraged Iraqi protesters surrounded the US embassy in Baghdad. In response, the US blamed "Iranian infiltrators" for the embassy attack, and deployed an additional 750 troops, bolstering the 14k troops currently stationed in ~20 military bases surrounding Iran. Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, an Iraqi militia commander, was also killed in a pre-dawn raid on the same day. That evening, another US airstrike in Iraq killed 6 people.