04 Jan Killing of Top Iranian General May Raise Risks for Mideast Shipping
Forces with U.S. Joint Special Operations Command have killed Maj. Gen. Qasem Soleimani, a leading Iranian political figure and the head of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps' Quds Force, a U.S.-designated terrorist organization. A JSOC drone destroyed a convoy carrying Soleimani and several Iranian-backed Iraqi militia leaders as they departed Baghdad International Airport early on Friday morning.
According to the Trump administration, the strike was intended to head off Iranian-backed actions against American citizens. The Pentagon said Thursday that Soleimani "was actively developing plans to attack American diplomats and service members in Iraq and throughout the region.”
In addition, the Pentagon accused Soleimani of approving violent protests at the American embassy in Baghdad. On December 27, a rocket strike from an Iranian-backed militia killed an American civilian contractor and injured several U.S. servicemembers at the K1 military base near Kirkuk. The U.S. military conducted retaliatory airstrikes on the militia positions responsible for the rockets; these retaliatory airstrikes prompted violent protests by Iranian militia members at the U.S. embassy in Baghdad. U.S. intelligence agencies believe that Soleimani was involved in authorizing the embassy protests.
Qasem Soleimani (alternately, Qassem Suleimani) was a top figure in Iranian foreign policy and political circles, and he was personally close to supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. In a statement, Khamenei vowed a "forceful revenge" on the "criminals who have his blood and the blood of the other martyrs last night on their hands."
The form that this "revenge" may take is not yet known. Brig. Gen. Esmail Ghaani, appointed Thursday to replace Soleimani as head of the Quds Force, suggested that it would be both deliberate and extreme. "Everyone should be patient a little to see the bodies of American soldiers all over the Middle East," he said, according to Al Jazeera.
The Pentagon is deploying 4,000 additional troops to Kuwait as a precautionary measure, and the Department of State has advised all U.S. citizens to depart Iraq as soon as possible.
Security consultancy Dryad Global suggested that Iran is likely to take a more moderate course than its rhetoric suggests – at most hitting soft targets. "It is . . . a realistic possibility that Iran could repeat its attacks Saudi oil facilities, as was observed in the attack on an oil processing facility in Abqaiq," Dryad wrote. "Attacks on Saudi oil infrastructure are a highly effective method of targeting US interests within the region, without directly targeting US personnel. Reports have also suggested that the IRGC has ‘threatened’ US bases in the Middle East. Whilst less likely, this remains a possibility."
In recent standoffs with Saudi Arabia and the UK, Iran has also targeted unprotected merchant shipping in the Gulf of Oman and Strait of Hormuz, and comparable attacks are possible. "Dryad assess that the high threat to vessels within the region remains primarily focused on US and Saudi-flagged vessels. Dryad further assesses that there is an additional threat to vessels carrying US cargos or assets or are seen to be linked to US economic interests," the consultancy wrote. "Marshall Islands-flagged vessels, for example, which come under US protection as a US associated state, are also at a heightened risk. There is a latent but similarly HIGH risk to vessels belonging to states that support the US Sentinel operation."
History of covert action
Soleimani ran Iran's covert operations activity in the Middle East for two decades, including foreign-influence operations in Syria, Iraq and Yemen. Most of the activity his force has directed – like Iran's support for anti-Israeli militant group Hezbollah, its backing for the Syrian government of Bashar al-Assad, and its support for the rebel Houthi movement in Yemen – ran counter to American interests. He has been a U.S.-designated terrorist leader since 2011 and is believed to be responsible for the deaths of hundreds of American soldiers.
In rare circumstances, like the fight against the Islamic State terrorist group, his activity aligned with American objectives. In 2015, Iranian-backed militias – including many of the same Shia insurgents who targeted U.S. troops during the Iraq War – quietly cooperated with U.S. forces to fight the Sunni terrorist group ISIS in western Iraq. In some of these battles, it is believed that Soleimani personally directed ground attacks on ISIS targets while American aircraft provided (unacknowledged or unknowing) support from above.
Some analysts believe that given Soleimani's seniority within the Iranian government, the attack is effectively a declaration of war. “This is a massive walk up the escalation ladder,” said Charles Lister of the Middle East Institute in a statement Thursday. “With Suleimani dead, war is coming – that seems certain, the only questions are where, in what form and when?”
“The question is this . . . Did America just assassinate, without any congressional authorization, the second most powerful person in Iran, knowingly setting off a potential massive regional war?” said Sen. Christopher Murphy (D-CT) in a statement.
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