The US Department of Defense confirmed Thursday evening that the US military, acting on the orders of President Donald Trump, killed top Iranian general Qasem Soleimani.
The commander of Iran’s Quds Force and a senior official in Iraq’s paramilitary forces have been killed by “shelling” targeting their vehicle at Baghdad International Airport, Iraqi state television reported.
Qassem Suleimani, commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Quds Force unit, and Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the deputy head of the Iran-backed Iraqi Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), were among those killed in the attack early Friday, al-Iraqiya TV reported.
Their deaths are likely to mark the beginning of a dangerous new chapter in the rivalry between the U.S. and Iran.
The airstrike comes after the US embassy compound in Baghdad was attacked on New Year’s Eve (local time) and appears likely to “send tensions soaring between the United States and Iran”, according to the Washington Post.
“At the direction of the President, the US military has taken decisive defensive action to protect US personnel abroad by killing Qasem Soleimani,” a Pentagon statement said.
“The US military has taken decisive defensive action to protect US personnel abroad by killing Qasem Soleimani, the head of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps-Quds Force,” the Pentagon said in a statement.
Suleimani was planning attacks on American diplomats and service members in Iraq and throughout the region, the Pentagon statement said.
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Here is how General Joseph Votel, the then-commander of US Central Command that oversees American military operations in the Middle East, explained Soleimani’s role in 2018: “Wherever you see Iranian activity, you see Qasem Soleimani, whether it is in Syria, whether it is in Iraq, whether it is in Yemen, he is there and it is the Quds Force, the organization which he leads, that I think is the principal threat as we look at this and the principal ones that are stoking this destabilizing activity. (CNN)
During the past decade Iran has conducted proxy wars across the Middle East in Iraq, Syria and Yemen and it also controls much of Lebanon through its proxy force there, Hezbollah. Soleimani was in charge of all these operations.
POLITICO reports that the killing of one of Iran’s top military commanders means the elimination of a dangerous U.S. foe — but it also represents a risky escalation in a volatile feud that could backfire on U.S. personnel and allies in the Middle East and beyond.
Even the possibility that the U.S. directly targeted Soleimani – especially on Iraqi soil – sent shockwaves around the globe, spiking oil prices and leading to instant assessments of the potential fallout. U.S. officials have long depicted Soleimani as a paramilitary and terrorist mastermind, deemed responsible for attacks on American troops in Iraq and against U.S. interests all over the world.
Some current and former U.S. officials, as well as veteran Iran observers, said the killing was an escalatory move far beyond what they’d expected.
New York Times : In July 2018, after President Trump warned Iran’s president not to threaten the United States, a rejoinder came not from the Iranian leader but from a military figure perhaps even more powerful.
“It is beneath the dignity of our president to respond to you,” Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani declared in a speech in western Iran. “I, as a soldier, respond to you.”
On Friday, General Suleimani was reported killed in an airstrike in Baghdad.
The general, a once-shadowy figure who enjoyed celebrity-like status among the hard-line conservatives in Iran, was a figure of intense interest to people both inside and outside the country.
It is not just that he was in charge of Iranian intelligence gathering and covert military operations, and regarded as one of its most cunning and autonomous military figures. He was also believed to be very close to the country’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei — and seen as a potential future leader of Iran.
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