Ex-US secretary of state Colin Powell dies

Colin Powell, the first black US secretary of state and top military officer, has died at the age of 84 from COVID-19 complications, his family says in a statement.

“He was fully vaccinated. We want to thank the medical staff at Walter Reed National Medical Center for their caring treatment. We have lost a remarkable and loving husband, father, grandfather and a great American,” Powell’s family said in a post on his Facebook page.

As a four-star army general, he was chairman of the military’s Joint Chiefs of Staff under President George HW Bush during the 1991 Gulf War in which US-led forces expelled Iraqi troops from neighbouring Kuwait.

Powell, a moderate Republican and a pragmatist, later served as secretary of state under President George W Bush.