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Iraqi TV Reports Strike Kills Powerful Iranian Revolutionary Guard Commander
The death of Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani was reported in Iraqi and Lebanese official media.
BAGHDAD — Iraqi state television reported Friday that the powerful commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps, Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani, was killed in a strike on the Baghdad International Airport early Friday.
Iranian and American officials have not confirmed the death of General Suleimani.
The strike killed five people, including the pro-Iranian chief of an umbrella group for Iraqi militias, Iraqi television reported and militia officials confirmed. The militia chief, Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, was a strongly pro-Iranian figure.
The public relations chief for the umbrella group, the Popular Mobilization Forces in Iraq, Mohammed Ridha Jabri, was killed as well.
Two other people were killed in the strike, according to an officer at the Baghdad joint command.
The attack appears to have been an airstrike that hit two vehicles, the officer said.
The strike was the second attack at the airport within hours. An earlier attack, late Thursday, involved three rockets that did not appear to have caused any injuries.
The attack came at a moment of high tension between the United States and Iran.
The United States said that an Iranian-backed militia fired 31 rockets into a base in Kirkuk Province, last week, killing an American contractor and wounding several American and Iraqi servicemen.
The Americans responded by bombing three sites of the Khataib Hezbollah militia near Qaim in western Iraq and two sites in Syria. Khataib Hezbollah denied involvement in the attack in Kirkuk.
Pro-Iranian militia members then marched on the American Embassy on Tuesday, effectively imprisoning its diplomats inside for more than 24 hours while thousands of militia members thronged outside. They burned the embassy’s reception area, planted militia flags on its roof and scrawled graffiti on its walls.
They withdrew late Wednesday afternoon.
Falih Hassan reported from Baghdad and Alissa J. Rubin from Paris.
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