Iran were again putting pressure on the crescent of influence he had spent the past two decades building. Violent crackdowns on the protests in Baghdad were blamed on militias under his influence.

Eighteen months before his death, Suleimani had issued Donald Trump a public warning, wagging his finger and dressed in olive fatigues. “You will start the war but we will end it.” Michael Safi Photograph: Mehdi Ghasemi/AFP

He said Johnson must argue that Trump’s policy on Iran needed to be “an awful lot clearer strategically in protecting people”.

His comments came as the wife of a British-Iranian engineer in prison in Tehran told how she feared for his safety in the wake of Suleimani’s assasination and pleaded with Johnson to redouble his efforts to help negotiate the release of herhusband.

Sherry Izadi said her husband, Anoosheh Ashoori, who was jailed for 10 years in August on disputed espionage charges, and other dual nationals being held in prison had previously been threatened by guards who said they would machine-gun them.

Izadi spoke to her 65-year-old husband, who is also held in Evin prison, on Sunday morning and said he was “very concerned” by reports of two British warships being sent to the region.

Asked if she had a message for the prime minister, Izadi told Sky News: “I would like to tell him to please do everything possible to get him out, especially in view of the recent situation because sometimes … it doesn’t feel safe where they are.

“A couple of occasions, some guards had told, not just my husband, but