The US assassinated Iranian Revolutionary Guard Quds Force commander Qasem Soleimani in a drone strike in Baghdad in January 2020 after claiming that he was behind a deadly rocket attack against US troops. Iraqi officials later concluded that Daesh (ISIS)* was likely behind the attacks, and said that Soleimani was in Baghdad on a peace mission.
The United States is bracing for possible revenge attacks against US forces in Iraq on the upcoming second anniversary of Qasem Soleimani’s killing, a senior administration official has said.
“Since July we’ve had about five months of calm, the longest period of calm we’ve had in Iraq I think in three years. We’re looking for that to continue but of course we very much anticipate heading into the first part of next year…there’s the anniversary of the Soleimani strike, there’s Iraq’s government formation process and a few other milestones,” the official said in a conference call Friday.
“Some of these attacks might start up again but we of course [are] ready for that and prepared,” the official added.
Soleimani and Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the deputy chairman of the Baghdad-allied Popular Mobilization Committee militias formed to fight Daesh in 2014, were killed in a US drone strike at the Baghdad on 3 January 2020. Then-president Donald Trump ordered the attack on Soleimani after aides told him that the Iran commander was responsible for an Iraqi Shia militia group’s deadly rocket attack on a Kirkuk military base housing US troops and mercenaries in December 2019, and the attempted storming of the US Embassy in Baghdad on New Year’s Eve that year.
Source » sputniknews