{"id":57352,"date":"2020-01-08T13:24:00","date_gmt":"2020-01-08T22:24:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/news\/alaska-delegation-supports-killing-of-iranian-general\/"},"modified":"2020-01-08T13:24:00","modified_gmt":"2020-01-08T22:24:00","slug":"alaska-delegation-supports-killing-of-iranian-general","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/news\/alaska-delegation-supports-killing-of-iranian-general\/","title":{"rendered":"Alaska delegation supports killing of Iranian general"},"content":{"rendered":"

Alaska’s congressional delegation are expressing their support for the killing of Iranian general<\/a> Qasem Soleimani on Jan. 2.<\/p>\n

“Qasem Soleimani was a terrorist who committed heinous atrocities and facilitated human rights abuses against the oppressed people of Iran. Our world is a safer place without him,” Rep. Don Young, R-Alaska, said in a statement.<\/p>\n

Young praised President Donald’s Trump’s leadership in supporting the Iranian people’s pursuit of liberty.<\/p>\n

In a statement on Jan. 2, the U.S. Department of Defense<\/a> said the strike against Soleimani was aimed at deterring future Iranian attack plans. However, the Trump administration has not elaborated on what those plans were leading some to question the legality of the strike.<\/p>\n

A United Nations charter allows for countries to act in self-defense in the face of an imminent threat but with no specifics coming from the U.S. government, it is difficult for legal experts to say whether the Soleimani strike fell within those grounds.<\/p>\n

“In the Soleimani case, the US is claiming it acted in self-defence to prevent imminent attacks, a category of action which, if in fact true, is generally seen as being permissible under the UN Charter,” Dapo Akande, professor of public and international law at Oxford University told the BBC<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Soleimani was the leader of the Quds Force, an Iranian overseas arm of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, which the U.S. has accused of supporting and coordinating with anti-American militias throughout the Middle East. American officials claim Soleimani orchestrated a violent protest at the U.S. Embassy<\/a> in Baghdad on Jan. 1.<\/p>\n

On his official Facebook page on Jan. 2, Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska, called Soleimani “the most vicious and notorious member of the world’s largest state sponsor of terror —Iran.”<\/p>\n

Sullivan said Soleimani’s killing was justified and that America and its allies would need to remain vigilant in the face of Iranian retaliation.<\/p>\n

Iran fired a series<\/a> of ballistic missiles at military bases housing U.S. troops in Iraq on Tuesday, though no one was killed in the strikes.<\/p>\n