Baghdad: Iranian Major-General Qassem Soleimani had instructed his top ally in Iraq, Abu Mahdi Al Muhandis, and other powerful militia leaders to step up attacks on US targets in the country using sophisticated new weapons provided by Iran.
In mid-October, Soleimani met with his Iraqi militia allies at a villa on the banks of the Tigris River, looking across at the US embassy complex in Baghdad, sources said. The strategy session came as mass protests against Iran’s growing influence in Iraq were gaining momentum, putting the Islamic Republic in an unwelcome spotlight. Soleimani’s plans to attack US forces aimed to provoke a military response that would redirect that rising anger toward the US.
Soleimani’s efforts ended up provoking the US attack on Friday that killed him and Muhandis, marking a major escalation of tensions between the US and Iran.
Two weeks before the October meeting, Soleimani also ordered Iranian Revolutionary Guards to move more sophisticated weapons – such as Katyusha rockets and shoulder-fired missiles that could bring down helicopters – to Iraq through two border crossings, the sources told Reuters.
At the Baghdad villa, Soleimani told the assembled commanders to form a new militia group of low-profile paramilitaries – unknown to the US - who could carry out rocket attacks on Americans housed at Iraqi military bases.
He ordered Kataib Hezbollah to direct the new plan. Soleimani told them such a group “would be difficult to detect by the Americans,” the source said.
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