Baghdad (AP) — 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.

The officials said the strike also killed Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the deputy commander of Iran-backed militias known as the Popular Mobilization Forces.

Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Forces confirmed the deaths of Soleimani and Mahdi al-Muhandis in a post to social media Friday morning local time.

The PMF said Soleimani and Mahdi al-Muhandis were targeted in a strike on a road at the Baghdad International Airport.

Popular Mobilization Forces are part of a larger umbrella group that includes a number of Shia militant groups supported by Iran.

Military Times reached out to Operation Inherent Resolve and the Pentagon seeking comment about this rocket attack near the Baghdad airport but did not immediately receive a response.

William Fallon, a retired admiral who ran U.S. Central Command from March, 2007 to March, 2008, told Military Times that Soleimani’s death is a “significant blow” to Iran.

“There is little doubt in my mind he was in Baghdad orchestrating activity,” said Fallon, who in his role as CENTCOM commander dealt with Soleimani’s actions in Iraq. “Those were not protests, they were coordinated attacks on the embassy.”

Fallon said that while tensions between the U.S. and Iran are likely to ratchet up, he does not anticipate a full-scale war.

“It will be interesting to see how big a strike back Iran wants to try,” Fallon said, adding that he expects terror attacks and Iranian-backed militia leaders to “put on a pretty good show against the embassy.”

“They have to be careful about it, as we have seen over the last six months, they are not shy,” said Fallon. “Whether it is tanker attacks, drone attacks, they will likely do something, but they will have to calculate how far they want to go.”

As far all-out war, “neither side really wants it,” said Fallon. “The media may egg it on, but it is not in the interest of either party to do it. There is too much to lose. The Iranians have a lot of chess pieces on the table.”

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. AP’s earlier story follows below.

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 official with the group known as the Popular Mobilization Forces said the dead included its airport protocol officer, identifying him as Mohammed Reda.

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.

It was not immediately clear who fired the missile or rockets or who was targeted. There was no immediate comment from the U.S.

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 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 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.

U.S. officials have suggested they were prepared to engage in further retaliatory attacks in Iraq.

“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.

He said the Iraqi government has fallen short of its obligation to defend its American partner in the attack on the U.S. embassy.

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.


https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-military/2020/01/03/iraq-rockets-fired-at-baghdad-airport-7-people-killed/