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Iran downplays significance of Baghdadi's death

Iranian officials have shrugged off the news that the United States killed the Islamic State leader.
Abbas Mousavi, spokesman for Iran's Foreign Ministry, gives a press conference in the capital Tehran on May 28, 2019. (Photo by ATTA KENARE / AFP)        (Photo credit should read ATTA KENARE/AFP/Getty Images)

Spokesman for Iran’s Foreign Ministry Abbas Mousavi downplayed the significance of the US operation that led to the death of Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. “From our viewpoint this action was not a major one because Daesh [IS] had already been defeated by us and regional countries,” Mousavi said on Iranian state television Oct. 28.

Claiming that even US officials have admitted that IS terrorists and their network came about as a result of US actions, Mousavi continued, “These groups and individuals have an expiration date for the Americans and whenever their expiration date arrives, they are destroyed.”

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