Staff Reporter

US President Donald Trump has said the United States may have gone a little too far in killing Iranian leaders. At the same time, defending US military strikes against Iran, he claimed that Iran started the war and that the United States is now bringing it to an end.

Trump made the remarks at a rally in Dubuque, Iowa, on Sunday, November 1, local time.

At the rally, Trump claimed that the United States had destroyed Iran's navy, air force and air defence radar systems. He also said several Iranian leaders had been killed.

“But maybe we've gone a little far with their leaders. Nobody talks about that,” he said.

Trump's Justification for Attacks on Iran

Defending the military campaign against Iran, Trump said he had protected the United States from a country he described as the world's leading state sponsor of terrorism.

He claimed that Iran had been attacking the United States since the Islamic Revolution in 1979. He also blamed Iran for the 2000 attack on the USS Cole, a US warship off the coast of Aden, Yemen. However, Al-Qaeda claimed responsibility for that attack.

Trump also blamed Iran for the deaths of American troops in roadside bomb explosions in Iraq.

Reference to the Killing of Qassem Soleimani

Trump said Qassem Soleimani, commander of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps' Quds Force, had been killed in retaliation for bomb attacks against US troops in Iraq. He described Soleimani as the “father of the roadside bomb.”

Soleimani was killed in a US strike in Baghdad, Iraq, in January 2020, when Trump was serving as president of the United States.

Reiterating his allegations against Iran, Trump said, “They started this war. We didn't start it. We're ending the war. We're beating them very badly.”

Source: Al Jazeera