Colin Powell, the former US secretary of state, has died from complications from Covid-19 aged 84, it was announced on Monday.

Powell, a retired four-star general who was a key figure in the build up to the invasion of Iraq in 2003 and who served as chairman of the joint chiefs of staff in the early 1990s, had been treated for Covid at Walter Reed national medical center in Bethesda, Maryland. He was fully vaccinated against coronavirus.

Announcing his death, his family said they had lost a “remarkable and loving husband, father, grandfather and a great American”.

He was America’s first Black secretary of state, serving in that role under George W Bush from 2001 to 2005. Powell was born in New York City.

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