Kuwait summons Iran envoy over Soleimani killing claim

An Iranian general claimed that drones that had taken off from Kuwait were involved in the killing of Qasem Soleimani.

1 min read

24 January, 2020

Kuwait has denied any role in the killing [Getty]

Kuwait has summoned Iran's ambassador after a high-level Iranian official implicated the emirate in the US drone attack that killed top commander Qasem Soleimani, official news agency KUNA reported.

Deputy Foreign Minister Khaled al-Jarallah expressed Kuwait's "amazement" at the claim that one of its air bases had been among those used to carry out the January 3 attack, KUNA said on Friday.

He was referring to a statement made by Brigadier-General Amirali Hajizadeh, aerospace commander of Iran's Revolutionary Guards Corps.

"MQ-9 UAVs [drones] were flying in the region [at the time of the attack] that had mostly taken off from Kuwait's Ali al-Salem" base, Hajizadeh told Iranian state television on Thursday.

Jarallah told the ambassador, Mohammed Irani, that Kuwait had already denied any role in the attack in Baghdad, which killed nine others in addition to Soleimani, who headed the Guards' foreign operations arm.

Such a claim "risks damaging relations" between Kuwait and Iran, Jarallah said.

Soleimani was one of Iran's most important figures. As chief of Iran's external operations Quds Force of the elite Revolutionary Guards, he was responsible for much of Iran's power-broking in the region for two decades.