Colin Powell, first Black US secretary of state, dies of COVID

Former US Secretary of State, Colin Powell has died aged 84 of Covid-19 complications, his family has announced.

"General Colin L. Powell, former U.S. Secretary of State and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, passed away this morning due to complications from Covid 19," the Powell family wrote on Facebook on Monday afternoon, October 18 said.

"We have lost a remarkable and loving husband, father, grandfather and a great American," they said, noting he was fully vaccinated.

"We want to thank the medical staff... for their caring treatment," it added.

He was a former top military officer who rose to become the first African-American secretary of state in 2001 under former US president, George W Bush.

He served in the US-Vietnam war, an experience that later helped define his own military and political strategies as he became a trusted military adviser to a number of leading US politicians.

His national popularity soared in the aftermath of the US-led coalition victory during the Gulf War, but his reputation would be forever stained when, as George W. Bush's first secretary of state, he pushed faulty intelligence before the United Nations to advocate for the Iraq War, claiming the country was developing weapons of mass destructions, an allegation that was proven false after the US led invasion of Iraq.