On 3 January 2020,\u00a0Qasem Soleimani, an Iranian\u00a0major general, was\u00a0killed\u00a0by an\u00a0American\u00a0drone strike\u00a0near\u00a0Baghdad International Airport, Iraq, while travelling to meet Iraqi Prime Minister\u00a0Adil Abdul-Mahdi.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Soleimani was commander of the\u00a0Quds Force, one of five\u00a0branches\u00a0of Iran’s\u00a0Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps\u00a0(IRGC), which is designated as a terrorist organization by both the United States and European Parliament.\u00a0Soleimani was considered the second most powerful person in Iran, subordinate to\u00a0Supreme Leader\u00a0Ali Khamenei. Five Iraqi nationals and four other Iranian nationals were killed alongside Soleimani, including the deputy chairman of Iraq’s\u00a0Popular Mobilization Forces\u00a0(PMF) and commander of the Iran-backed\u00a0Kata’ib Hezbollah\u00a0militia,\u00a0Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis\u2014a person designated as a terrorist by the U.S. and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The Pentagon says Soleimani and his troops were “responsible for the deaths of hundreds of American and coalition service members and the wounding of thousands more.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The strike occurred during the 2019\u20132022 Persian Gulf crisis, which began after the U.S.\u00a0withdrew from the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran\u00a0in 2018, reimposed\u00a0sanctions, and accused Iranian elements of fomenting a campaign to harass U.S. forces in the region in 2019. On 27 December 2019, the\u00a0K-1 Air Base\u00a0in Iraq, which hosts Iraqi and U.S. personnel, was\u00a0attacked, killing an American contractor. The U.S. responded by launching\u00a0airstrikes across Iraq and Syria, reportedly killing 25 Kata’ib Hezbollah militiamen. Days later, Shia militiamen and their supporters retaliated by\u00a0attacking the U.S. embassy\u00a0in the\u00a0Green Zone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
U.S. officials justified the Soleimani strike saying it was necessary to stop an “imminent attack”, though later clarifying the legal justification of the action as being taken “in response to an escalating series of attacks…to protect United States personnel, to deter Iran from conducting or supporting further attacks…and to end Iran’s strategic escalation of attacks…” Some experts, including the United Nations special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, considered the assassination as a likely violation of\u00a0international law\u00a0as well as U.S. domestic laws. Iran called the strike an act of “state terrorism”. The Iraqi government said the attack undermined its national sovereignty and considered it a breach of its bilateral security agreements with the U.S. and an act of aggression against its officials. On 5\u00a0January 2020, the\u00a0Iraqi parliament\u00a0passed a non-binding resolution to expel all foreign troops from its territory while, on the same day, Iran took the fifth and last step of reducing commitments to the\u00a02015 international nuclear deal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Soleimani’s killing sharply escalated tensions between the U.S. and Iran. Iranian leaders\u00a0vowed revenge, while U.S. officials said they would\u00a0preemptively\u00a0attack any Iran-backed paramilitary groups in Iraq that they perceived as a threat. Many in the international community reacted with concern and urged restraint and diplomacy. Five days after the airstrike, Iran launched a series of\u00a0missile attacks on U.S. forces based in Iraq, the first known direct engagement between Iran and the U.S. since the naval battle precipitating the\u00a0Vincennes<\/em>\u00a0incident\u00a0on 3 July 1988. Following the shootdown of\u00a0Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752\u2014a civilian airliner\u2014by the IRGC amidst the escalation, no additional military actions took place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Further information: Iran\u2013United States relations<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n The modern\u00a0Middle East\u00a0has seen a number of occasions in which the assassination of high-level government and military figures was attempted, or at least considered. Such instances include United States\u00a0decapitation strike\u00a0air raids targeting Libyan leader\u00a0Muammar Gaddafi\u00a0in 1986 and Iraqi leader\u00a0Saddam Hussein\u00a0in 1991, 1998, and 2003, in addition to killings or attempted killings of non-state terrorist leaders such as\u00a0Anwar al-Awlaki\u00a0and\u00a0Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.\u00a0Governments conducting assassinations of foreign leaders and officials was largely frowned upon in prior centuries, but that norm has been weakening over time, especially since\u00a0World War II.\u00a0The effectiveness of anti-terrorist “leadership targeting” has become a subject of scholarly debate, especially with regard to whether such killings are actually beneficial to a country’s foreign policy goals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the wake of the strike against Soleimani, both the topic of further eroding norms and questions regarding effectiveness were raised. The costs and benefits of foreign policy assassinations are difficult to compute, and decisions to go ahead with such actions often reflect the vague, and not always realized, hope that any successor to the targeted person will be less capable against, or will embody policies more favorable toward, the country taking the action.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Further information:\u00a0American-led intervention in Iraq (2014\u2013present)\u00a0and\u00a0Iranian intervention in Iraq (2014\u2013present)<\/p>\n\n\n\n In 2014, the U.S. intervened in Iraq as a part of\u00a0Operation Inherent Resolve\u00a0(OIR)\u2013an American-led mission to fight the\u00a0Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant\u00a0(ISIL) terror organization\u2013and have been training and operating alongside Iraqi forces as a part of the anti-ISIL coalition. In 2017, ISIL forces in Iraq were largely defeated amidst a\u00a0civil conflict, with the help of primarily Iran-backed\u00a0Shia\u00a0militias\u2014the\u00a0Popular Mobilization Forces, reporting to the\u00a0Iraqi prime minister\u00a0since 2016\u2014and the U.S.-backed\u00a0Iraqi Armed Forces.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Concerning the 15-year\u00a0Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action\u00a0provisional nuclear deal with Iran, some critics of the treaty argued that Iran could make a\u00a0nuclear bomb\u00a0after expiry of the limited-term nuclear deal. U.S. President\u00a0Donald Trump\u00a0criticized the nuclear deal, particularly the\u00a0Obama administration’s debt clearance of $1.7\u00a0billion to Iran. Tensions rose between Iran and the U.S. in 2018 after Trump unilaterally\u00a0withdrew\u00a0from the 2015 nuclear deal and reimposed\u00a0sanctions against Iran\u2014which severely affected Iran’s economy\u2014as a part of his administration’s strategy of applying “maximum pressure” against Iran for the purpose of establishing a new nuclear deal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The\u00a0Quds Force, which Qasem Soleimani led, has been designated a terrorist organization by Canada,\u00a0Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and the U.S.\u00a0Soleimani himself was sanctioned by the United Nations\u00a0and the\u00a0European Union and was on U.S. terror watchlists.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis\u00a0was designated a terrorist by the U.S. in 2009.\u00a0He was the deputy commander of Iraq’s\u00a0Popular Mobilization Forces\u00a0(PMF).\u00a0He also commanded\u00a0Kata’ib Hezbollah, a 25,000-strong militia\u00a0considered a terrorist organization by\u00a0Japan,\u00a0the\u00a0United Arab Emirates,\u00a0and the U.S.<\/p>\n\n\n\n General\u00a0Qasem Soleimani\u00a0was considered the second most powerful person in\u00a0Iran, behind Iran’s\u00a0Supreme Leader\u00a0Ayatollah\u00a0Ali Khamenei,\u00a0and in his later years enjoyed a near unassailable heroic status, especially with supporters of\u00a0Tehran’s hard-line politics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ever since the\u00a0Iran\u2013Iraq War\u00a0(1980\u201388), in which Iran was attacked by\u00a0Saddam Hussein’s Iraq with significant assistance of several Western countries siding with Hussein against Ayatollah\u00a0Ruhollah Khomeini’s\u00a0Islamic republic\u00a0in Tehran, with notably the U.S. supplying weapons and intelligence to Iraq, Soleimani had developed into the architect of all of Iran’s foreign policies in the Middle East and a key figure in all of Iran’s foreign and defense policies. \u00a0He provided crucial support to President\u00a0Bashar al-Assad’s regime during the\u00a0Syrian Civil War.\u00a0In his 2008 letter to the U.S. General\u00a0David Petraeus, then\u00a0Commander\u00a0of the\u00a0Multi-National Force in Iraq, he asserted: “General Petraeus, you must know that I, Qasem Soleimani, am in charge of the Iranian policies concerning Iraq,\u00a0Lebanon,\u00a0Gaza\u00a0and\u00a0Afghanistan”. Iran’s alleged ties\u00a0to the\u00a0Taliban\u00a0were cited as part of the justification for the assassination of Soleimani.\u00a0That made his killing by the U.S. on 3 January 2020 a significant aggravation of the\u00a0existing tensions\u00a0between the U.S. and Iran.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the days after the assassination of Soleimani, Iran’s leaders vowed “shattering revenge”\u00a0“on places and at times where the U.S. don’t expect it”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Responses to Qasem Soleimani’s perceived influence in Iraq and abroad had been a topic of debate amongst U.S. officials for many years. In August 2007, as U.S. military officials attempted to learn more about the leadership of the Iran-backed proxy groups operating in Iraq, they received a message relayed through the Iraqi Minister of State for National Security, that Soleimani wanted them to know that he was “the sole decision-maker on Iranian activities in Iraq”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n According to a report by NBC News,\u00a0Eric Edelman, a career foreign services officer with senior diplomatic posts at the time, U.S. commander Army General\u00a0George Casey, considered designating Soleimani and\u00a0Quds Force\u00a0officers enemy combatants, thus making them subject to military action. However, the idea was ruled out over concerns of opening a “new front” in the war. Edelman stated, “There were a lot of us who thought he should be taken out. But at the end of the day, they decided not to do that,” due to concern of starting simultaneous conflict with Iran.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Former U.S. presidents\u00a0George W. Bush\u00a0and\u00a0Barack Obama\u00a0both considered and rejected targeting Qasem Soleimani, reasoning that it would escalate to a full-scale war. Retired CIA officer Marc Polymeropoulos told\u00a0The New York Times<\/em>\u00a0that Soleimani, unlike other adversaries killed by the U.S., felt comfortable operating in the open and was not hard to find. He often took photographs of himself and openly taunted U.S. forces.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In October 2007, the Bush administration was the first to designate Soleimani a terrorist on the basis of his involvement with the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps and Quds Force, and the increasing recognition of the role they played in the Iraq conflict.\u00a0According to an interview with a\u00a0PolitiFact\u00a0journalist, retired U.S. Army Colonel Frank Sobchak, said that around the same time U.S. special forces had planned for his capture, but the mission was not approved by senior officials. He said, “Individuals that we talked to in senior positions of the U.S. government told us that with support for the war at an all-time low in 2007, the Bush administration recognized the importance of Soleimani to the war, but was not willing to risk the political capital and repercussions that could occur from expanding the war to that level.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n These activities preceded escalating concern and terror designations of Soleimani by the\u00a0Obama administration. The first such designation was made in May 2011, in response to Soleimani’s assistance to the\u00a0Syrian General Intelligence Directorate\u00a0in the violent suppression of Syrian protestors.\u00a0The second, and more serious designation by the\u00a0Obama administration\u00a0came in October 2011, after a plot was revealed in which four senior Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Quds Force (IRGC-QF) officers were planning to assassinate the Saudi Arabian Ambassador while in the United States, under the supervision of Soleimani.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In September 2015, radio host\u00a0Hugh Hewitt\u00a0asked Donald Trump about Soleimani. After initially confusing him with a\u00a0Kurdish\u00a0leader, Trump argued that leaders like Soleimani would be dead under his administration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It was reported in 2015 that\u00a0Israel\u00a0was “on the verge” of assassinating Soleimani on Syrian soil; however, the U.S., during the Obama administration’s negotiations for the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, thwarted the operation by revealing it to the Iranian officials.<\/p>\n\n\n\n On 25 August 2019,\u00a0Israeli Foreign Minister\u00a0Israel Katz\u00a0said, “Israel is acting to strike the head of the Iranian snake and uproot its teeth\u00a0… Iran is the head of the snake and Qassem Soleimani, the commander of the Revolutionary Guards Quds Force, is the snake’s teeth.” In October 2019,\u00a0Hossein Taeb, chief of the\u00a0Intelligence Organization of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, told the press that his agency had arrested an unspecified number of people, allegedly foiling a plot by Israeli and Arab agencies to assassinate Soleimani. He said they had planned to “buy a property adjacent to the grave of Soleimani’s father and rig it with explosives to kill the commander”. \u00a0He added the way of the assassination would have appeared as part of an internal Iranian power struggle to “trigger a religious war inside Iran”. Yossi Cohen, chief of the Israeli foreign intelligence agency (Mossad), said in response, “Soleimani knows that his assassination is not impossible.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n On 2 January 2020,\u00a0The New York Times<\/em>\u00a0author\u00a0Steven Simon\u00a0wrote in a comment: “What if the former commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, Qassim Suleimani, visits Baghdad for a meeting and you know the address? The temptations to use\u00a0hypersonic missiles\u00a0will be many.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n Further information:\u00a02019 K-1 Air Base attack,\u00a0December 2019 United States airstrikes in Iraq and Syria,\u00a0Attack on the United States embassy in Baghdad, and\u00a02019\u20132021 Iraqi protests<\/p>\n\n\n\n See also:\u00a0Qasem Soleimani \u00a7\u00a0U.S. decision-making<\/p>\n\n\n\n In early October 2019, according to two Iraqi militia commanders and two security sources who spoke with\u00a0Reuters\u00a0staff, Iranian\u00a0Major-General Qasem Soleimani\u00a0met in Baghdad to discuss a change in strategy with Iraqi Shiite militia allies.\u00a0The new focus of strategy was to be an increase in targeted rocket attacks on U.S. forces in Iraq, with the intended effect of provoking an antagonistic U.S. military response that would divert political pressure from Iran. Leading up to the meeting, there had been increasing anti-Iran sentiment amongst the local Iraqi population, culminating in prolonged and vocal anti-Iran protests, with some demonstrators banging their shoes on raised portraits of\u00a0Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.\u00a0At least 400 protestors were killed and an estimated 20,000 wounded. Soleimani decided to step up attacks on U.S. forces. He chose\u00a0Kata’ib Hezbollah\u00a0because the group “would be difficult to detect by the Americans” and could use Iran-provided scout drones for more precision in target selection for the rocket attacks. The US was becoming increasingly concerned at Iran’s influence within the Iraqi government.<\/p>\n\n\n\n On 27 December 2019, the K-1 Air Base in\u00a0Kirkuk Province, Iraq\u2014one of many Iraqi military bases that host Operation Inherent Resolve coalition personnel\u2014was\u00a0attacked\u00a0by more than 30 rockets, killing an\u00a0Iraqi-American\u00a0U.S. defense contractor, and injuring multiple U.S. and\u00a0Iraqi\u00a0service members.\u00a0The U.S. blamed the Iranian-backed Kata’ib Hezbollah militia for the attack.\u00a0Furthermore, a senior U.S. official, who spoke to reporters on condition of anonymity, said there had been a campaign of 11 attacks on Iraqi bases hosting OIR personnel in the two months before the 27 December incident, many of which the U.S. also attributed to Kata’ib Hezbollah. \u00a0On 29 December 2019, retaliatory U.S. airstrikes targeted five Kata’ib Hezbollah weapon storage facilities and\u00a0command and control\u00a0locations in Iraq and Syria. 25 militia members died and 55 were wounded.<\/p>\n\n\n\n On 31 December 2019, after a funeral was held for the Kata’ib Hezbollah militiamen, dozens of Iraqi\u00a0Shia\u00a0militiamen and their supporters marched into the Green Zone and surrounded the U.S. embassy compound. Dozens of the demonstrators then smashed through a main door of the checkpoint, set fire to the reception area, raised\u00a0Popular Mobilization Units\u00a0militia flags, left\u00a0anti-American\u00a0posters, and sprayed anti-American\u00a0graffiti. U.S. president Donald Trump accused Iran of orchestrating the attack on the embassy and added that they would be held “fully responsible”.\u00a0Iran’s foreign ministry denied they were behind the protests.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Pentagon\u00a0evaluated Soleimani as the leader of Tehran’s attacks on\u00a0U.S. bases in Iraq, including the 2019 K-1 Air Base attack and killing of a U.S. civilian, and the\u00a0shooting down of a U.S. aerial vehicle. Regarding the decision to kill Soleimani, the U.S. focused on both his past actions and a deterrent to his future action as the Pentagon announced that “he was actively developing plans to attack\u00a0U.S. diplomats\u00a0and service members in Iraq and throughout the region.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n According to an unidentified senior U.S. official, sometime after the bombing of Kata’ib Hezbollah in late December 2019, a security briefing was convened at President Trump’s\u00a0Mar-a-Lago\u00a0estate where he and his advisors, including Secretary of State\u00a0Mike Pompeo, Defense Secretary\u00a0Mark Esper, and chairman of the joint chiefs of staff General\u00a0Mark Milley\u00a0discussed how to respond to Iran’s alleged role in sponsoring anti-U.S. attacks in Iraq. Reportedly, the\u00a0targeted killing\u00a0of Iranian general Qasem Soleimani, whom U.S. officials regarded as a facilitator of attacks on U.S. personnel in Iraq, was listed as the “most extreme option” of many options on a briefing slide,\u00a0reflecting an alleged practice among Pentagon officials whereby a very extreme option is presented to presidents so as to make other options appear more palatable.\u00a0Trump chose the option to kill Soleimani, prompting the CIA and other U.S. intelligence agencies that had tracked Soleimani’s whereabouts for years to locate him on a flight from\u00a0Damascus\u00a0to Baghdad, reportedly to hold meetings with Iraqi militiamen. The air strike would have been called off if Soleimani had been on his way to meet with Iraqi government officials aligned with the U.S.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Trump did not notify the top congressional leaders of the\u00a0Gang of Eight\u00a0in advance of the strike. Senator\u00a0Lindsey Graham\u00a0indicated Trump had discussed the matter with him in advance of the strike, as he was visiting the president at his Mar-a-Lago estate. According to journalist\u00a0Bob Woodward, four days before the strike, Graham tried to change Trump’s mind as they discussed the decision while playing golf.<\/p>\n\n\n\n According to unidentified sources cited by\u00a0The New York Times<\/em>, Trump initially rejected the option to target Soleimani on 28 December 2019, but made the decision after being angered by television news reports of the U.S. embassy in Baghdad being attacked by armed Iranian-backed militiamen, namely\u00a0Kata’ib Hezbollah\u00a0and the\u00a0Popular Mobilization Forces, on 31 December.\u00a0This followed a 27 December rocket attack by Kata’ib Hezbollah on an airbase in\u00a0Kirkuk\u00a0that killed an American civilian contractor and injured four U.S. service members and two\u00a0Iraqi security forces\u00a0personnel. By late 2\u00a0January, Trump had finalized his decision of the most extreme option his advisors had provided him, which reportedly “stunned” top Pentagon officials.\u00a0The New York Times<\/em>\u00a0report cited unidentified U.S. officials as saying the intelligence regarding Soleimani’s alleged plot against the U.S. was “thin” and that the Ayatollah had not approved any operation for Soleimani to carry out. However, General Milley said the intelligence was “clear and unambiguous” with a time frame of “days, weeks”. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Vice President\u00a0Mike Pence\u00a0were reportedly the most hawkish voices arguing to retaliate against Iran. Pence later wrote that Soleimani was plotting “imminent” attacks on U.S. persons, but provided no evidence of this. U.S. National Security Advisor\u00a0Robert O’Brien\u00a0insisted that Soleimani “was plotting to kill, to attack American facilities, and diplomats, soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines were located at those facilities”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In contrast to the\u00a0Times’<\/em>\u00a0reporting, according to unidentified sources cited by\u00a0The Washington Post<\/em>\u00a0on 4 January 2020, Trump wanted to kill Soleimani\u00a0to avoid the appearance of weakness amid the ongoing Persian Gulf crisis, since his decision to call off an airstrike against Iran in summer 2019 after the downing of a U.S. drone had led to what he perceived as negative media coverage. Lawmakers and aides who had spoken to him told the\u00a0Post<\/em>\u00a0that the president also had the\u00a02012 Benghazi attack\u00a0in Libya on his mind. \u00a0Furthermore, Mike Pompeo had discussed killing Soleimani with Trump months before the strike, but did not garner support from the president or the defense team then in place. \u00a0However, according to\u00a0The Wall Street Journal<\/em>\u00a0on 10 January 2020, Trump purportedly told associates after the strike that he was motivated to strike Soleimani for domestic political gain, particularly to sway\u00a0Republican\u00a0senators to support him in his upcoming Senate\u00a0impeachment\u00a0trial.<\/p>\n\n\n\n On the day of the strike, Pompeo asserted the attack was ordered by Trump to disrupt an “imminent attack” by Soleimani operatives, although subsequent reports on that rationale were mixed. On 9\u00a0January, Trump said “We did it because they were looking to blow up our embassy. We also did it for other reasons that were very obvious. Somebody died, one of our military people died. People were badly wounded just a week before.” \u00a0On 10 January, Trump claimed that Soleimani had been planning attacks on four U.S. embassies in the Middle East. \u00a0Afterwards several members of Congress, including\u00a0Mike Lee\u00a0and\u00a0Chris Murphy, claimed that the Trump administration had not informed them of this in the intelligence briefing on the strike. Three days after Trump’s remarks, Defense Secretary\u00a0Mark Esper<\/a>\u00a0clarified that, although “there was evidence” of a plot against the U.S. embassy in Baghdad, the president “didn’t cite intelligence” about the other three embassies he mentioned, and that the president instead shared his belief that there “probably could have been” a plot against those embassies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n On 18 January,\u00a0CNN\u00a0reported that President Trump claimed that Soleimani was “saying bad things about our country”, then he asked “How much of this shit do we have to listen to?\u00a0… How much are we going to listen to?”<\/p>\n\n\n\n Adil Abdul-Mahdi, the prime minister of Iraq, said he was scheduled on the day of the attack to meet Soleimani, who was delivering Iran’s response to a previous message from Saudi Arabia that Iraq had relayed. \u00a0According to Abdul-Mahdi, Trump had called him to request that Abdul-Mahdi mediate the conflict between the U.S. and Iran before the drone strike.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Attack<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n On 3 January 2020, at 12:32\u00a0a.m. local time, Soleimani’s\u00a0Airbus A320\u00a0Cham Wings\u00a0plane arrived at Baghdad International Airport from\u00a0Damascus International Airport\u00a0after being delayed for two hours for unknown reasons. An\u00a0MQ-9 Reaper\u00a0drone of the\u00a0U.S. Air Force\u00a0and other military aircraft loitered above the area as Soleimani and other pro-Iranian paramilitary figures, including\u00a0Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, leader of Iraq’s\u00a0Popular Mobilization Forces,\u00a0entered a\u00a0Toyota Avalon\u00a0and\u00a0Hyundai Starex\u00a0and departed the airport towards downtown Baghdad. At 12:47\u00a0a.m., the Reaper drone launched several missiles, striking the convoy on an access road as it departed the airport, engulfing the two cars in flames, killing 10 people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As news of the event broke, the U.S. Department of Defense issued a statement which said that the strike was carried out “at the direction of the president” and was meant to deter future attacks. Trump asserted that Soleimani had been planning further attacks on American diplomats and military personnel and had approved the attack on the American embassy in Baghdad.<\/p>\n\n\n\n According to Saudi-based\u00a0Arab News<\/em>, the drone that struck Soleimani’s convoy had been launched from\u00a0Al Udeid Air Base\u00a0in\u00a0Qatar, and was controlled remotely by operators at the\u00a0Creech Air Force Base.\u00a0A statement by the Air Force of Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) stated that\u00a0Ali Al Salem Air Base\u00a0in Kuwait participated, among other bases in the region, in the operation that was executed near Baghdad airport recently. Kuwait summoned the Iranian ambassador to Kuwait over the statement and expressed Kuwait’s resentment and categorical denial at such statement. According to\u00a0Ahmed al-Asadi, a member of the\u00a0Iraqi Parliament, the drones “were 3 American UAVs that took-off from the military-base of\u00a0Ain al-Assad\u00a0and flew in the sky of Baghdad for 20 hours on Thursday morning and then came back directly to the Ain al-Assad base after carrying out the assassination operation.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n As DNA results were still pending regarding the identification of those killed, a senior Pentagon official said there was “high probability” that Soleimani would be identified. Soleimani’s body was identified by a ring that he was known to wear. Ahmed Al Asadi, a spokesman for the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), confirmed the deaths of Soleimani and Muhandis. \u00a0According to Ayatollah\u00a0Ali Sistani’s office, the casualties included “several commanders who defeated\u00a0Islamic State\u00a0terrorists”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The IRGC said a total of ten people were killed. Along with Soleimani, four other IRGC officers were also killed: Brigadier General Hossein Pourjafari, Colonel Shahroud Mozafarinia, Major Hadi Taremi and Captain Vahid Zamanian. The remaining five casualties were Iraqi members of the PMF: deputy chairman\u00a0Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, chief of protocol and public relations Muhammed Reza al-Jaberi,\u00a0Mohammad al-Shibani, Hassan Abdul Hadi and Heydar Ali.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" On 3 January 2020,\u00a0Qasem Soleimani, an Iranian\u00a0major general, was\u00a0killed\u00a0by an\u00a0American\u00a0drone strike\u00a0near\u00a0Baghdad International Airport, Iraq, while…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":82,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-72","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","wpcat-1-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/trumpoz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/trumpoz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/trumpoz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trumpoz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trumpoz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=72"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/trumpoz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":81,"href":"https:\/\/trumpoz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72\/revisions\/81"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trumpoz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/82"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/trumpoz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=72"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trumpoz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=72"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trumpoz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=72"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Background<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Assassination as a policy consideration<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
U.S. and Iranian activities in Iraq since 2014<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Political considerations<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Significance of the assassination of Soleimani<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Prior threats against Soleimani<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
Prelude<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Pentagon evaluation<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Trump briefing<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Trump’s alleged motivation for the strike<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
Soleimani’s trip to Iraq<\/h3>\n\n\n\n