House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said that a Thursday night airstrike that killed top Iranian general Qasem Soleimani wasn’t authorized by Congress.
“The Administration has conducted tonight’s strikes in Iraq targeting high-level Iranian military officials and killing Iranian Quds Force Commander Qasem Soleimani without an Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) against Iran,” Pelosi said in a statement after the Pentagon confirmed the strike had killed Soleimani. The Quds Force—which reports directly to Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei—is a unit within Iran’s Revolutionary Guards that serves to gather intelligence and supports Lebanon’s Hezbollah, Hamas, Yemen’s Houthis, and a variety of Shia militia groups in Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan.
