Iran's supreme leader appointed Esmail Qaani as the new head of the Revolutionary Guards' foreign operations arm after its commander, Qasem Soleimani, was killed on Friday in a US strike on Baghdad airport. “Following the martyrdom of the glorious general haj Qasem Soleimani, I name Brigadier General Esmail Qaani as the commander of the Quds Force of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps,” Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said in a statement posted on his official website.
Soleimani, a US-designated terrorist, along with six other, were killed in the airstrike carried out by the United States near Baghdad's international airport. The strike has escalated tensions between the US and Iran, with Tehran vowing to take a "vigorous revenge" for the killing.
Following Soleimani's death, President Trump, now on vacation in Florida, did not comment immediately, except for tweeting an image of the US flag.
However, the US has issued a travel advisory to its citizens in Iraq asking them to depart immediately due to the heightened tensions following the killing of Iran's elite Quds Force chief. "US citizens should depart via airline while possible, and failing that, to other countries via land," read a statement issued by the US Embassy in Iraq.
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