Top Iranian Quds Force Commander Killed in U.S. Airstrike in Iraq

BAGHDAD – Qassem Soleimani, head of Iran’s Quds Force, was killed in an airstrike just outside Baghdad International Airport in the early morning of 3 January.

The Quds Force is a unit in Iran’s Revolutionary Guards directed to carry out unconventional warfare and intelligence activities abroad.

For over 20 years, Soleimani played a key role in Iran’s successful campaign to spread its influence across the Middle East and became somewhat of a celebrity domestically and internationally.

The U.S. airstrikes, authorized by U.S. President Donald Trump, come after a series of events escalating the simmering conflict between the U.S. and Iran.

28 December: An attack on an Iraqi base near Kirkuk killed an American civilian contractor and wounded four American soldiers and two members of the Iraqi security forces. The Pentagon believes the pro-Iranian Iraqi militia Kataib Hezbollah was behind the attacks.

29 December: The Pentagon announced that U.S. forces launched air strikes against five facilities belonging to Kataib Hezbollah in Iraq and Syria. Twenty-five people affiliated with the militia were killed in the air strikes, including 3 Iranian officers

31 December: The U.S. embassy compound in Baghdad was attacked by supporters of Kataib Hezbollah protesting the American airstrikes.

Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, head of Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Committee, an Iraqi state-sponsored umbrella organization composed of some 40 Iraqi and Iranian militias, was also killed in the airstrike. Muhandis was the founder of Kataib Hezbollah.

The Pentagon said in a statement that, “At the direction of the president, the U.S. military has taken decisive defensive action to protect U.S. personnel abroad by killing Qassem Soleimani.

It added that, “This strike was aimed at deterring future Iranian attack plans.”

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said “harsh revenge” awaited the “criminals” who killed Soleimani. His death, though bitter, would double the motivation of the resistance against the United States and Israel, he said.

In a statement carried by state television he called for three days of national mourning.