KUWAIT CITY: The Trump administration is increasingly concerned the 74-strong coalition it cobbled together to destroy Daesh is losing sight of the prime objective.
It’s pressing those partners to refocus, overcome rivalries and concentrate on the task at hand: the eradication from Iraq and Syria of Daesh.
US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson plans to sound that alarm at a coalition gathering in Kuwait on Tuesday. His visit comes with the fight at a critical moment and the mission shifting from offensive military operations to stabilization.
Distractions are adding up, such as Turkey’s fighting with US-backed Kurdish rebels in Syria and renewed spillover from Syria’s civil war. Meanwhile, hostilities between noncoalition actors Iran, its proxies in Syria, and Israel risk creating a new conflict in an already crowded battlespace.
US tells anti-Daesh coalition to ‘keep eyes on prize’
US tells anti-Daesh coalition to ‘keep eyes on prize’
Iran president says Khamenei killing ‘declaration of war against Muslims’
- Masoud Pezeshkian says avenging the killing of the supreme leader was a right and obligation of the Islamic republic
TEHRAN: Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian said Sunday that the killing of supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in US and Israeli strikes was a “declaration of war against Muslims.”
“The assassination of the highest political authority of the Islamic Republic of Iran and a prominent leader of Shiism worldwide … is perceived as an open declaration of war against Muslims, and particularly against Shiites, everywhere in the world,” Pezeshkian said in a statement carried by state TV.
Pezeshkian said that avenging the killing of the supreme leader was a right and obligation of the Islamic republic.
“The Islamic Republic of Iran considers it its legitimate duty and right to avenge the perpetrators and masterminds of this historic crime,” said Pezeshkian.
