Before targeting him, Trump unveils the Soleimani offensive plan
US President Donald Trump
"I can say that I think there were 4 embassies, probably the one in Baghdad," Trump said in an interview with Fox News, which will be broadcast later.
On Thursday evening, the US President said, in statements to reporters at the White House, that the United States killed the prominent Iranian military commander Qassem Soleimani shortly after his arrival in Iraq last week, in part because "they were looking to bomb our embassy."
"We grabbed a broken monster and killed him, and this should have happened a long time ago. We did this because they were looking to bomb our embassy," Trump added.
Trump said that his country also carried out the strike due to a missile attack on a US military base in Iraq by an Iranian-backed armed group in December in an attack that killed an American contractor and US officials believe Soleimani played a role in his mastery.
This was followed by violent protests by supporters of the Iranian-backed faction in front of the US embassy in Baghdad, and Trump said Soleimani wanted those protests to become more violent.
"This was a completely organized conspiracy. You know who organized it. That man is no longer in our vicinity now. He had in his mind more than that embassy."