Breaking: Iran's terror overlord killed in Trump's most significant foreign policy act so far

January 03, 2020

 

[A quick 3 am note by Tom Gross]

Breaking news: Iran's most senior terrorist overlord, Qassem Soleimani, who is responsible for tens of thousands of civilian deaths in Syria, Iraq, Iran, Yemen, Israel, Lebanon and Gaza as well as ordering terror attacks on civilians in Europe and elsewhere, is reportedly one of those killed in a targeted US airstrike in Baghdad. Soleimani also has American blood on his hands. If so, this is Donald Trump's most significant foreign policy act.

CNN ALL BUT IGNORES

While Fox and others are leading with non-stop coverage, it is mind-boggling that other American broadcast media including CNN International are at the current time instead still talking about Ukraine.

Among the other three terrorists killed in the American airstrike in Baghdad is reportedly Abdul Mahdi Muhandis, the veteran Iraqi/Iranian terrorist who bombed the US Embassy in Kuwait in 1983 and who headed Iraq's death squads known as the PMU.

The news of Soleimani's death is in many ways strategically more significant than the killing of ISIS 'caliph' Baghdadi last year.

My Arab, Iranian and Kurdish friends on Facebook are ecstatically happy at the news of Solemani's death, but from CNN, nothing.

TRUMP'S WARNING

Soleimani's death may mark a major escalation in the 'low-level' conflict between the US and Iran that most recently led to the Iranian-orchestrated storming of the US embassy in Baghdad. It may also help spur further the ongoing pro-democracy protests in Iran.

On Tuesday, Trump threatened Iran with strong action over the embassy attack.

'?Iran will be held fully responsible for lives lost, or damage incurred, at any of our facilities,' he said on Twitter.

'They will pay a very BIG PRICE! This is not a Warning, it is a Threat,' wrote Trump.

On Tuesday night Trump vowed that the situation 'will not be a Benghazi' -- a reference to the deadly attack on the U.S. consulate in Libya during the presidency of Barack Obama, in which U.S. Ambassador to Libya Christopher Stevens and other Americans were killed. Stevens was the first U.S. ambassador killed in the line of duty since 1979.

 

Update (7 am)

Now confirmed by the Pentagon:

https://www.defense.gov/Newsroom/Releases/Release/Article/2049534/statement-by-the-department-of-defense

 

Update (8 am)

My Arab, Iranian and Kurdish friends have been posting videos all night of the celebrations at Soleimani's death. But if you watch the BBC and certain American media, you would think that the Middle East is in mourning.



 

Update (5 pm)

There is a follow-up to dispatch here:

* Further reactions to the death of Qassem Suleimani: '52% of us humbly apologize'


Also here:

* Qassem Soleimani was not Peppa Pig (& Peace now more likely than before he died)

 

Among past recent dispatches mentioning Soleimani:

* Iranian protests are about freedom, not fruit (& Russia eyes Libya) (December 3, 2019)

* Iranian regime shuts downs internet in Iraq as it continues to shoot protestors (November 5, 2019)

 

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All notes and summaries copyright © Tom Gross. All rights reserved.