US dramatically escalates tensions with Iran assassinating Islamic Guards commander

"At the direction of the President, the U.S. military has taken decisive defensive action to protect U.S. personnel abroad by killing Qasem Soleimani, the head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Quds Force, a U.S.-designated Foreign Terrorist Organization," the US Department of Defense said in a statement it released. The stike "was aimed at deterring future Iranian attack plans," the Pentagon added.

Iraqi state television has reported that Iranian General Kassem Suleimani, the head of the Revolutionary Guards' Kuds (Jerusalem) force, is among the dead in the attack on Baghdad International Airport, the French Agency said. Abu Mahdi al-Muhaddis, who was second in the hierarchy of the Popular Mobilization Forces, was also killed.

The Reuters international news agency, citing an unnamed US official, said the United States had fired strikes at two targets linked to Iran's Revolutionary Guards - a select corps of the armed forces of the Islamic Republic of Iran - have confirmed the death of Suleimani, head of the Quds Force, Tehran's "special envoy" for Iraqi affairs.

"Revolutionary Guards announce that the glorious commander of Islamic forces, Hajj Kassem Suleimani, has died and has become a witness in an attack by America against Baghdad airport this morning," Iranian state television said. 

The Supreme National Security Council of the Islamic Republic of Iran was convened extraordinary to discuss the "criminal" attack in Baghdad that resulted in the killing of Iranian Lieutenant General Qassem Suleimani, a spokesman for that body said.

Within "the next few hours, there will be an extraordinary meeting of the Supreme National Security Council to examine the criminal activity" of the Americans, "the attack on Governor Suleimani in Baghdad, which has resulted in his martyrdom," a representative of this body stated.