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‘Baghdad airstrike aimed at deterring future Iranian attack plans’: Pentagon
The Pentagon said Qasem Soleimani, the head of Iran’s IRGC, was “actively developing plans to attack American diplomats and service members in Iraq and throughout the region”.
The United States military said Thursday it had killed Qasem Soleimani, the head of the Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps-Quds Force (IRGC) , at the direction of President Donald Trump to prevent him from carrying out alleged attacks on American personnel in Iraq and the region.
Iraqi television first reported the killing of Soleimani, saying he was hit near the Baghdad airport, along with Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, an Iraqi militia commander.
“At the direction of the President, the US military has taken decisive defensive action to protect US personnel abroad by killing Qasem Soleimani,” the US department of defense said in a statement late Thursday, adding, IRGC-QF was a US-designated Foreign Terrorist Organization.
The Pentagon said Soleimani was “actively developing plans to attack American diplomats and service members in Iraq and throughout the region”.
And went on to hold him responsible for “the deaths of hundreds of American and coalition service members and the wounding of thousands more”.
The Pentagon said Soleimani had orchestrated multiple attacks on US-led coalition bases in Iraq over the last several months – including the attack on December 27th – culminating in the death and wounding of additional American and Iraqi personnel.
“General Soleimani also approved the attacks on the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad that took place this week,” it said.
The US defense department said the airstrike “aimed at deterring future Iranian attack plans” and warned that it will continue to “take all necessary action to protect our people and our interests wherever they are around the world”.
