Mediacom world news portal
On Friday, a top United States State Department official told reporters that he has seen “very solid intelligence” that top Iranian military leader Qassem Soleimani was planning “imminent attacks against American diplomats and our armed forces.” That intelligence, the State Department says, is why Donald Trump ordered the drone strike that killed Soleimani late on Thursday.
But according to reporting by New York Times terrorism correspondent Rukmini Callimachi, the evidence that Soleimani had an “imminent” attack in the works was far from “very solid.” In fact, the evidence supporting the Triump administration claim is “razor thin,” she reported, based on her conversations with U.S. officials and other sources.
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Friday became the first Trump administration official to claim publicly that the killing of Soleimani was carried out to stop an “imminent attack.” But Pompeo did not detail any evidence to support his claim.