“With his departure and with God’s power, his work and path will not cease and severe revenge awaits those criminals who have tainted their filthy hands with his blood and the blood of the other martyrs of last night’s incident,” Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said in a statement.
The country’s defense minister, Amir Hatami, said that the night time strike by the “arrogant U.S.” would be met with a “crushing” response.
The U.S. Embassy in Baghdad on Friday urged American citizens to leave Iraq immediately, citing heightened tensions, and said in a statement that it was suspending public consular activities.
The U.S. attack appeared intended to cripple a force that has been the vanguard of Iran’s decades-long effort to shape the region in its favor. Soleimani joined Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a young man, and took control of the Quds Force, its external wing, in the late 1990s.
Under his command, the force expanded its support for armed groups across the region, including in Iraq, where U.S. officials blamed Iran-backed militias for killing at least 600 American troops following the 2003 U.S. invasion.
In recent years Soleimani was regularly seen making visits to affiliated militias in Iraq, Syria and elsewhere, demonstrating not just his military influence but significant diplomatic clout. Also killed in the attack was Jamal Jaafar Ibrahimi, one of Iraq’s most influential militia commanders who is better known by his nom de guerre, Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis.
Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper said the Pentagon had taken “decisive defensive action” against Soleimani.
“Gen. Soleimani was actively developing plans to attack American diplomats and service members in Iraq and throughout the region,” Esper said in a statement. “This strike was aimed at deterring future Iranian attack plans.”
A video circulated by Shiite militia groups showed, accompanied by the sound of wailing, the crumpled wreckage of the vehicle in which Soleimani purportedly was traveling. A photograph claimed to show his bloodied, ash-covered hand wearing the same blood-red ring seen in earlier photos of him alive.
A U.S. official, who like others spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to comment on the record, said the attack was conducted by a U.S. drone and struck a two-car convoy carrying Soleimani and others on an access road near Baghdad International Airport. At least half a dozen people were believed to have been killed.
The Russian Foreign Ministry said the killing was reckless and would fuel tension in the region and offered condolences to its ally, Iran. “Soleimani loyally served the cause of defending the national interests of Iran. We offer our sincere condolences to the Iranian people,” the ministry said.
Konstantin Kosachev, head of the foreign affairs committee in the upper house of Russia’s parliament, told the state-run RIA Novosti News Agency that Soleimani’s targeting is “the worst-case scenario” and predicted that Iranian retribution “will not take long.”
“I’ll be happy to be wrong because wars are easy to start, but very hard to end,” Kosachev said.
Senior officials with the Popular Mobilization Forces, as the Iraqi militia groups are known, lamented the deaths in messages circulating on WhatsApp. “May God reward you for the loss of the brave leaders, Hajj Soleimani and Hajj Muhandis. May God accept them as martyrs in his vast mercy,” wrote Ahmed al-Assadi, the chief spokesman of the Popular Mobilization Forces, many of which are seen as being funded and directed by Iran.
Despite a long period of increasing tension between Iran and the Trump administration, which has vowed a tougher stance on Tehran’s support for proxy groups, the attack against an incomparable figure in Iran’s security establishment came as a surprise to many analysts, in part because it was seen as likely to ignite a significant Iranian response.
The attack, which Esper said was authorized by President Trump, raises fresh questions about the president’s approach to the Middle East. While Trump has employed bellicose rhetoric and authorized several strikes against the Syrian government, an ally of Tehran, he has repeatedly voiced his desire to get the United States out of costly wars in the Middle East.
Washington post
