MP Speculates Collaboration of Baghdad Airport Foreign Firms in Assassination of General Soleimani

A senior Iraqi legislator said that foreign companies operating at Baghdad airport could have collaborated with the US in the assassination of IRGC Quds Force Commander Lieutenant General Qassem Soleimani and Deputy Commander of Iraq's Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis.

News ID: 449055

Date: 14 February 2020 - 16:23

RNA - "The foreign firms operating at Baghdad airport might have provided the US forces with security information about al-Muhandis and General Soleimani's movement," Mohammad Karim told the Arabic-language website of al-Ma'aloumeh on Thursday.

He added that the foreign firms are informed of the routes and figures who enter Iraq, noting that the Iraqi national security services are gathering information on the incident as it is related to Iraq's sovereignty.

Karim said that results of the investigations could possibly lead to the expulsion of a number of foreign firms active at Baghdad airport, foreign staff or security commanders.

Lieutenant General Soleimani and Abu Muhandis were assassinated in a US drone strike on Baghdad International Airport in Iraq on January 3.

The two were martyred in an American airstrike that targeted their vehicle on the road to the airport.

Five Iranian and five Iraqi militaries were martyred by missiles fired by the US drone at Baghdad International Airport.

On January 8, the IRGC Aerospace Force started heavy ballistic missile attacks on US Ein Al-Assad airbase in Southwestern Iraq near the border with Syria and a US operated airbase in Erbil in retaliation for the US assassination of General Soleimani.

Ein Al-Assad is an airbase with a 4km runway at 188m altitude from sea levels, which is the main and the largest US airbase in Iraq. Early reports said the radar systems and missile defense shields in Ein Al-Assad failed to operate and intercept the Iranian missiles. Unofficial reports said the US army's central radar systems at Ein Al-Assad had been jammed by electronic warfare.

The second IRGC reprisal attack targeted a US military base near Erbil airport in Iraqi Kurdistan Region in the second leg of "Martyr Soleimani" reprisal operation.

Iraq said the attacks had not taken any toll from its army men stationed at these two bases. The US army had blocked entrance into Ein Al-Assad to everyone, including the Iraqi army.

It was the first direct attack on the US army ever since world war two.

The IRGC officials said none of the missiles had been intercepted.

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