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Iraqi TV: Iran’s Gen. Soleimani killed in Baghdad strike Senior Iranian, Iraqi commanders killed in Baghdad airstrike - Iraqi state TV
(32 minutes later)
Baghdad — Iraqi TV and three Iraqi officials officials said Friday that Iranian Gen. Qassim Soleimani, the head of Iran’s elite Quds Force, has been killed in an airstrike at Baghdad’s international airport. An air strike has killed Iranian Qods Force commander Qassem Soleimani and another senior Iranian-linked figure in Baghdad, Iraqi state television reported on Thursday. No one claimed immediately responsibility for the strike, which Iraqi television also said killed Abu Mehdi al-Muhandas, an Iraqi militia commander, near the Iraqi capital’s airport, but the death of Iran’s most revered military leader appeared likely to send tensions soaring between the United States and Iran.
The officials said the strike also killed Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the deputy commander of Iran-backed militias known as the Popular Mobilization Forces. Soleimani, who has long been Iran’s most prominent military figure and is closely linked to the country’s foreign proxy groups, has taken on an enhanced role in Iraq as the country’s Shiite militia groups have gained new clout in recet years.
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. AP’s earlier story follows below. Pentagon officials declined comment on the strike.
An official with an Iran-backed paramilitary force said Friday that seven people were killed by a missile fired at Baghdad International Airport, blaming the United States. The strike comes amid already increased friction between Washington and Iran over what U.S. official say is a campaign of sustained agrees sin against the United States and its allies.
The official with the group known as the Popular Mobilization Forces said the dead included its airport protocol officer, identifying him as Mohammed Reda. Earlier on Thursday, Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper said that Iran and its proxies may be preparing renewed strikes on U.S. personnel in Iraq, even as the Trump administration increases the number of troops in the region to guard against what it characterized as sustained Iranian aggression.
A security official confirmed that seven people were killed in the attack on the airport, describing it as an airstrike. Earlier, Iraq’s Security Media Cell, which releases information regarding Iraqi security, said Katyusha rockets landed near the airport’s cargo hall, killing several people and setting two cars on fire. “There are some indications out there that they may be planning additional attacks,” Esper said at the Pentagon, a day after members of an Iranian-linked militia, Kataib Hezbollah, withdrew from the area around the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad following their assault on the diplomatic facility.
It was not immediately clear who fired the missile or rockets or who was targeted. There was no immediate comment from the U.S. “So do I think they may do something?” he said. “Yes, and they will likely regret it.”
The security official said the bodies of those killed in the airport attack Friday were burned and difficult to identify. The official added that Reda may have been at the airport to pick up a group of “high-level” visitors who had arrived from a neighboring country. He declined to provide more information. The attempted siege — in which militiamen threw molotov cocktails, stormed into a reception area and then established a camp outside the sprawling American compound — marked the most intense flare-up in U.S.-Iran tensions in Iraq since the end of the Iraq War in 2011.
The attack came amid tensions with the United States after a New Year’s Eve attack by Iran-backed militias on the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad. The two-day embassy attack which ended Wednesday prompted President Donald Trump to order about 750 U.S. soldiers deployed to the Middle East. The incident has strained relations with the Baghdad government, which has sought to maintain stable ties with both its chief Western backer, the United States, and its powerful neighbor, Iran, and the violence posed a new test of the Trump administration’s hawkish policy against Tehran.
The breach at the embassy followed U.S. airstrikes on Sunday that killed 25 fighters of the Iran-backed militia in Iraq, the Kataeb Hezbollah. The U.S. military said the strikes were in retaliation for last week’s killing of an American contractor in a rocket attack on an Iraqi military base that the U.S. blamed on the militia. After the strike that Iraqi state television said killed Soleimani, there were reports of gunfire erupting in the airport vicinity at the time of the strike, and the Iraqi Army command said three Katyusha rockets, which are typically fired by Iranian backed militias, exploded nearby.
U.S. officials have suggested they were prepared to engage in further retaliatory attacks in Iraq. Kataib Hezbollah’s targeting of the embassy followed U.S. strikes over the weekend on militia facilities in Iraq and Syria. Officials said they came in response to repeated rocket and artillery attacks on U.S. facilities, including one recent incident that killed an American contractor in Iraq. At least 25 militia members were killed in the retaliatory strikes.
“The game has changed,” Defense Secretary Mark Esper said Thursday, telling reporters that violent acts by Iran-backed Shiite militias in Iraq — including the rocket attack on Dec. 27 that killed one American — will be met with U.S. military force. Tensions between the United States and Iran have been building. The Trump administration withdrew from the Iran nuclear deal in 2018 and has since imposed new sanctions that have devastated the Iranian economy. In June, President Trump authorized and then called off airstrikes in Iran following Tehran’s downing of an American surveillance drone.
He said the Iraqi government has fallen short of its obligation to defend its American partner in the attack on the U.S. embassy. Trump threatens Iran after embassy attack, but remains reluctant to get more involved in region
The developments also represent a major downturn in Iraq-U.S. relations that could further undermine U.S. influence in the region and American troops in Iraq and weaken Washington’s hand in its pressure campaign against Iran. “The game has changed,” Esper said. “And we’re prepared to do what is necessary to defend our personnel and our interests and our partners in the region.”
Copyright 2020 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. He said that could include military action to preempt militia attacks if U.S. officials learn about them ahead of time.
Speaking alongside Esper, Gen. Mark A. Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the embassy compound, which contains hardened offices and residences and occupies more than 100 acres in Baghdad’s international zone, remained secure.
“There is sufficient combat power there, air and ground, that anyone who attempts to overrun that will run into a buzz saw,” Milley said.
In response to the attack on the embassy, the administration has deployed 750 troops from a special quick-action battalion from the 82nd Airborne Division to Kuwait, a staging ground for forces going into Iraq. About 100 Marines were sent into Baghdad to protect the embassy.
Milley said the increase in forces in Kuwait was needed in part to compensate for the Marine deployment and ensure readiness to respond to other possible incidents in the region.
About 5,000 U.S. troops are stationed in Iraq as part of efforts to combat the remnants of the Islamic State and support Iraqi security forces. While the number of diplomats there is far fewer than it has been in past years, hundreds of embassy personnel were forced to shelter in safe rooms during the militia siege.
Milley also appeared to question whether the Iraqi government, which includes senior officials seen as having strong allegiances to Tehran, intended to take action to check militia groups.
Last year, Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi issued an order aimed at strengthening government control over militia units, which have gained new military and political clout since 2014 because of their instrumental role in battling the Islamic State.
“They have the capability,” Milley said. “It’s a question of political will, and that’s not for us to decide. That’s for the internal political dynamics of Iraq.”
The Iraqi government has been in crisis for months amid massive popular protests focused on widespread corruption and, to a lesser extent, Iranian influence in Iraq. The mass mobilizations prompted Abdul Mahdi to resign late last year, though he remains in office in a caretaker capacity.
It is unclear in the wake of the U.S. strikes and the embassy episode whether some Iraqi politicians’ calls for a full American withdrawal will gain momentum.
Speaking in a subsequent Fox News interview, Esper suggested a potential shift in U.S. strategy in Iraq, saying the Islamic State’s self-declared caliphate “remains physically defeated, if you will,” and now the administration’s “aim is to deter further Iranian bad behavior that has been going on now for over 40 years.”
Asked whether Iranian leaders needed a “punch in the nose” that goes beyond sanctions and tough rhetoric, Esper declined to answer directly. The Trump administration has already sent thousands of troops and additional assets to the Middle East, including missile defense systems, in response to the perceived Iranian threat.
Esper said Iran must end its nuclear and long-range missile programs, stop taking hostages and move away from “malign behavior where they are inspiring terrorist groups, and resourcing and directing them all the way from Africa across the Middle East and into Afghanistan.”
Col. Myles Caggins, a spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition against the Islamic State, said the embassy episode had not damaged efforts to target the once-powerful militant group, which no longer holds territory but continues to conduct insurgent attacks.
“Although they are a dangerous distraction, recent attacks from Kataib Hezbollah militias have not deterred us from partnering with local security forces for training missions and outside-the-wire operations to catch ISIS members,” he said in an email, using an acronym for the Islamic State.
Carol Morello and Liz Sly contributed to this report.