General Qassem Soleimani, head of Iran’s elite Quds Force, was killed in a US airstrike at Baghdad’s international airport on Friday morning, marking a major escalation in US-Iran tensions.
The strike also killed Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the deputy commander of Iran-backed militias known as the Popular Mobilization Forces, or PMF.
The Pentagon said US President Donald Trump ordered the killing of Soleimani “in a decisive defensive action to protect US personnel abroad”.
The Department of Defence added: “General Soleimani was actively developing plans to attack American diplomats and service members in Iraq and throughout the region. General Soleimani and his Quds Force were responsible for the deaths of hundreds of American and coalition service members and the wounding of thousands more”.
The attack is seen as a major blow for Iran and is expected to draw severe retaliation from Iran and its proxies in the region. Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has warned that a “harsh retaliation is waiting” for the US. Khamenei declared three days of public mourning for the general’s death.
Several hours after the strike, the US embassy in Baghdad urged all American citizens to leave Iraq “immediately”.
Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani said Iran and the “free nations of the region” will take revenge on the United States.
Hassan Nasrallah, the head of Iran-backed terror group Hezbollah mourned Soleimani as a “master of resistance” and vowed: “To continue on General Soleimani’s path, we’ll raise his flag in all battlefields”. Soleimani had close ties with Hezbollah and was heavily involved in its operations.
The Hamas terror group offered its “sincere condolences” and condemned the US’s “belligerent action and the ongoing American crimes in sowing and spreading discord in the region in service of the criminal Zionist enemy”.
US Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, posted a video on Twitter purporting to show Iraqis dancing in the streets celebrating news of the death.
Soleimani, who led the Quds force, an elite special forces brigade within Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps responsible for Iran’s foreign military operations. He played a central role in fighting in Syria and Iraq, was seen as a potential future leader of Iran and was instrumental in the spread of Iranian influence in the Middle East.
He survived several assassination attempts against him by Western, Israeli and Arab agencies over the past two decades, and had been rumoured dead several times.
Today’s attack followed a New Year’s Eve attack by Iran-backed militias on the US Embassy in Baghdad. The two-day embassy attack, which reportedly injured 62 people, prompted President Trump to deploy 750 troops to the Middle East.
Chanting “death to America”, the protesters set fire to a sentry box, pulled security cameras away from walls and hurled Molotov cocktails. At one point the mob used a drainpipe to smash an embassy window.
Tensions between the US and Iran have soared since the Trump administration announced in May 2018 that it was pulling out of the 2015 nuclear deal.
