Baghdad: Iranian Major-General Qassem Soleimani, head of the elite Quds Force, was killed early Friday in a US air strike on his convoy at Baghdad airport, the Pentagon said. Top Iraqi militia commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis was also killed in the attack, a militia spokesman said.
“This strike was aimed at deterring future Iranian attack plans,” the Pentagon said in a statement.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards confirmed in a statement that Soleimani was killed.
Ahmed al-Assadi, a spokesman for Iraq’s Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF), the umbrella grouping of Iran-backed militias, blamed the United States and Israel. “The American and Israeli enemy is responsible for killing mujahideen Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis and Qassem Soleimani,” he said.
Iraqi paramilitary groups said Friday that three rockets hit Baghdad International Airport, killing five members of Iraqi paramilitary groups and two ‘guests’.
The rockets landed near the air cargo terminal, burning two vehicles, killing and injuring several people.
Local militia commander Abu Muntathar al-Hussaini confirmed the news of the attacks and the deaths. “Haj Soleimani and Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis were riding in one vehicle when it was struck by two successive guided missiles launched from an American helicopter while they were on their way from the arrivals hall on the road that leads out of Baghdad Airport,” al-Hussaini stated.
He stated that the second vehicle was carrying bodyguards from the PMF and was hit by one rocket. “The American criminals had detailed information on the convoy’s movements. Hence they could carry out their attacks successfully,” al-Hussaini added.
The high-profile assassinations are seen as a massive blow to Iran, which has been locked in a long conflict with the United States that escalated sharply last week with the storming of the US embassy perimeter in Iraq by pro-Iranian militiamen following an American air raid on an Iraqi Shi’ite militia.
Soleimani, who has led the foreign arm of the Revolutionary Guards and has had a key role in fighting in Syria and Iraq, acquired celebrity status at home and abroad.
He was instrumental in the spread of Iranian influence in the Middle East, which the United States and Tehran’s regional foes Saudi Arabia and Israel have struggled to keep in check. He survived several assassination attempts against him by Western, Israeli and Arab agencies over the past two decades.
Soleimani’s Quds Force, tasked with carrying out operations beyond Iran’s borders, shored up support for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad when he looked close to defeat in the civil war raging since 2011 and also helped militiamen defeat Islamic State (IS) in Iraq.
Soleimani became head of the Quds Force in 1998, a position in which he kept a low profile for years while he strengthened Iran’s ties with Hezbollah in Lebanon, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s government and Shi’ite militia groups in Iraq.
The deaths are a potential turning point in the Middle East and are expected to draw severe retaliation from Iran and the forces it backs in the Middle East against Israel and American interests.
It should be stated here that Soleimani had been rumoured dead several times, including in a 2006 airplane crash that killed other military officials in northwestern Iran and following a 2012 bombing in Damascus that killed top aides of embattled Syrian President Bashar Assad.
Agencies