FUTURE PLANS

Iran’s Supreme Leader Says Iran Must Directly Retaliate for Soleimani Strike: NYT

He reportedly said any future retaliation must be openly carried out by Iranian forces.

Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, told a national-security council meeting that any retaliation for the U.S. strike that killed top general Qassem Soleimani must be a direct and proportional attack on American interests, three Iranians familiar with the meeting told The New York Times. At the meeting, which was to lay down parameters for any future retaliation, Khamenei said the attack must be openly carried out by Iranian forces themselves, a departure for Iranian leadership, according to the Times. Iran has typically used proxies to attack targets since the establishment of the Islamic Republic in 1979, the Times reports. “We are ready to take a fierce revenge against America,” Revolutionary Guard Gen. Hamid Sarkheili said at Soleimani’s funeral procession, which millions of Iranians attended, on Monday. “American troops in the Persian Gulf and in Iraq and Syria are within our reach.”