Pompeo: US not currently engaged in hostilities against Iran

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told Congress the country is not currently engaged in hostilities against Iran.

On the matter of the killing in January of top Iranian general Qassem Soleimani, Pompeo said the assassination made US personnel abroad safer.

"Removing him from the battlefield was a de-escalatory measure," Pomepo said, adding that the killing made Iran take US deterrence more seriously.

"They recognized the seriousness with which America acted," he said. He called Soleimani a "strategic" target who was planning additional attacks on US citizens.

Lawmakers from the Democratic Party pushed back against Pompeo's statement, saying that the administration has not showed that Soleimani posed an imminent threat, which had been the justification for the strike.

The US will sustain its pressure campaign on Iran, Pompeo told the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

Since US President Donald Trump unilaterally pulled out of the 2015 multi-nation nuclear deal with Iran, despite no sign at the time that Tehran was in violation. Washington has been imposing strict sanctions on that country.

The nuclear deal has since been unravelling.