Iran vows vengeance after America kills Qassem Suleimani

PERHAPS HE CAME to believe his own myth, the aura of invincibility he worked so hard to cultivate. Early on January 3rd General Qassem Suleimani, Iran’s most storied and feared commander, stepped off a plane from Syria or Lebanon at Baghdad’s international airport. He climbed into a waiting convoy alongside the leader of an allied militia—a seeming lapse in security, the two men travelling together, that suggests the general felt safe in Iraq. Minutes later he was dead, his vehicle blasted into scrap by an American drone flying overhead.

Few believed the news as it trickled out on social media and satellite television. Within hours, though, both sides had confirmed the rumours. The supreme leader of Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, praised General Suleimani as a martyr and vowed “severe revenge”. President Donald Trump was uncharacteristically restrained: he simply tweeted an image of an American flag. He left the formal announcement to the Pentagon, which called this a “defensive action”.