On January 3 , Qassem Soleimani, the commander of the powerful Quds Force of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, arrived in Baghdad from Damascus. He had been invited to the country by Iraqi Prime Minister Adil Abdul-Mahdi, who had been asked by the Trump administration to mediate between Iran and the U.S. after the U.S. embassy in Baghdad was nearly overrun. Tensions between the two countries have been at a fever pitch ever since U.S. President Donald Trump’s ‘maximum pressure’ campaign forced Iran to withdraw its ‘strategic patience’ approach. Soleimani was met at the airport by Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the deputy commander of the Popular Mobilisation Forces, an umbrella organisation of several Iraqi Shia militias formed in 2014. Soleimani and al-Muhandis were partners in the fight against the Islamic State. As they drove out of the airport, a U.S. Reaper drone fired a missile, which killed them instantly.
Escalating tensions
This story is from the January 07, 2020 edition of The Hindu.
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This story is from the January 07, 2020 edition of The Hindu.
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