RNA - "Saudi Arabia is sending a delegation to Washington to urge restraint with Iran on behalf of [Persian] Gulf states. The message will be: 'Please spare us the pain of going through another war'," Liz Sly, The Washington Post Beirut bureau chief wrote on Twitter.
The Al-Sharq Al-Awsat newspaper reported, citing people it didn’t identify, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman has instructed his younger brother, Deputy Defense Minister Khalid bin Salman, to travel to Washington and London in the next few days to urge restraint.
Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) Qods Force Commander Lieutenant General Qassem Soleimani, Deputy Commander of Iraq's Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), or Hashad al-Shabi, Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, and several others were martyred in a targeted assassination raid by US aircraft in Iraq on Friday morning.
Iranian officials branded Washington assassination operation an “act of international terrorism” and promised retaliation. Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei has stated that the Unites States must await a tough revenge.
High-ranking US Democrats warned that the assassination of Iran’s elite Quds Force chief will invite retaliatory attacks from Tehran and bring the two nations to the brink of a major war in the Middle East. Democrats have slammed Trump’s decision to launch an operation against General Soleimani, with many saying he needed congressional authority to order the killing and branding the assassination operation as "an act of war".
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