6:41 a.m. ET, January 6, 2020
The US and Iran are on heightened alert after a weekend of military action. Here's how it unfolded
From CNN's Darran Simon
Days after President Donald Trump ordered a drone strike that killed
Qasem Soleimani, the powerful commander of Iran's elite Quds Force, the US is bracing for possible retaliatory actions by Iran.
Before the strike, the US had been pushed to the brink of retaliation against Iran or its proxies on multiple occasions, specifically after attacks last summer on oil tankers in the Persian Gulf and oil facilities in Saudi Arabia and Iran's downing of a US drone in June.
Here's how tensions between the two nations have escalated in recent weeks:
December 27: A rocket attack believed to be linked to a Shiite militia group, backed by Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, killed a US civilian contractor and wounded several US and Iraq military personnel on a base near Kirkuk, Iraq.
December 29: According to the Pentagon,
US forces conducted airstrikes at five facilities in Iraq and Syria controlled by a Shiite military group known as Kataib Hezbollah -- the group that American officials blamed for the attack on a base near Kirkuk.
December 31: Pro-Iranian protesters, demonstrating against the American airstrikes,
attacked the US Embassy in Baghdad, scaling walls and forcing the gates open.
January 3: Trump said he ordered a precision drone strike at the Baghdad airport to "terminate" Soleimani, a top Iranian commander who was plotting "imminent and sinister attacks on Americans diplomats and military personnel." Others were killed in the attack.
January 4: Iran vowed retaliation against the US, in response to the strike. If Iran targets "any Americans or American assets," Trump has said he would sanction specific military strikes against Iranian cultural sites, which could amount to a war crime.
January 5: Soleimani's body arrived in his home country, where thousands mourned him. Meanwhile, Maj. Gen. Hossein Dehghan, the military adviser to Iran's Supreme Leader,
told CNN in an exclusive interview that Tehran would retaliate directly against US "military sites."