President Donald Trump said during a press conference on Thursday that the Iranian general killed in a US drone strike last week was plotting to bomb the US Embassy in Iraq.

"We did it because they were looking to blow up our embassy," Trump told reporters. "We also did it for other reasons that were very obvious. Somebody died, one of our military people died, people were badly wounded just a week before."

Trump didn't offer any evidence supporting his assertion that Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani had planned an imminent attack on Americans or the embassy.

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President Donald Trump said during a press conference on Thursday that he ordered a deadly strike on Iran's top military commander last week because the general was plotting to bomb the US Embassy in Iraq.

"We did it because they were looking to blow up our embassy," Trump told reporters. "We also did it for other reasons that were very obvious. Somebody died, one of our military people died, people were badly wounded just a week before."

Trump didn't offer any evidence supporting his assertion that Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani had planned an imminent attack on Americans or the embassy. He referred to the Iranian-backed protesters who surrounded and attempted to storm the embassy in the days preceding Soleimani's killing.

The protesters, believed to be members of an Iranian-backed Iraqi militia, were reacting to a US strike late last month that killed two dozen of the militia's members.

Trump's apparently off-the-cuff announcement came after administration officials had insisted they could not reveal any more information about the threat they believe Soleimani posed because it would compromise "sensitive" intelligence.

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Trump tied the situation to the 2012 attack in which a US ambassador and three other Americans were killed in an attack on the US Embassy in Benghazi, Libya.

"Benghazi was a disaster," he said. "Had they done what I did you wouldn't know the name Benghazi."

Vice President Mike Pence appeared on cable news shows on Thursday morning to insist that the Trump administration couldn't reveal more information — even to lawmakers in a classified setting — about the "imminent threat" the White House has said Soleimani posed.

Defense Secretary Mark Esper said on Tuesday that the government was forced to "act in self-defense" by killing Soleimani last week but didn't made public any information regarding a specific threat.

On Wednesday, many lawmakers — including two Republican senators — slammed the administration as failing to provide what they considered adequate information about the reasons for Soleimani's killing.