Trump says US not looking to start war with Iran

BAGHDAD (AP) — President Donald Trump says the killing of General Qassem Soleimani was not undertaken in an effort to begin a conflict with Iran.

Speaking to reporters in Florida for the first time since the drone strike on Soleimani, Trump says: “We took action last night to stop a war. We did not take action to start a war.”

Trump also says he does not seek regime change in Iran, but the nation’s use of “proxy fighters to destabilise its neighbours must end and it must end now.”

Trump adds that targets of possible retaliation have been identified “and I am ready and prepared to take whatever action is necessary.”

Some Syrians in the rebel-held provinces of Idlib and Aleppo have celebrated the targeted killing of a top Iranian general by distributing sweets.

Pictures posted on Twitter showed men with a tray bearing baklava and a card reading, “We congratulate the free people of Syria for the death of criminal Qassem Soleimani. May the pig Bashar be next.”

The latter referred to Syrian President Bashar Assad.

At a refugee camp near the border with Turkey in Aleppo province, another group of men on Friday had a card saying “Thank You Trump” next to a tray of sweets set up for people to pick from.

Soleimani was considered the architect of Iran’s deployment and policy in Syria, where he backed Syrian government troops in the nine-year conflict.

Iran dispatched advisers and supported Assad’s forces, turning the tide of the war in the last few years and pushing out armed opposition from key areas.

The US attack at Baghdad’s international airport received a different reaction in Pakistan, where protesters in several cities burned American flags to oppose Suleimani’s killing.

The demonstrations were organised by the country’s minority Shiite Muslims.

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