The strike “was aimed at deterring future Iranian attack plans,” officials said.
Qassem Soleimani, the leader of Iran‘s elite Quds Force, was killed late Thursday in a U.S. airstrike that targeted a convoy near the main airport in Baghdad.
Iraqi militia commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis also died in the airstrike, Ahmed al-Assadi, a spokesman for Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Forces umbrella grouping of Iran-backed militias, confirmed to ABC News.
Officials with the U.S. Department of Defense confirmed in a statement to ABC News that U.S. forces were responsible for the attack.
“At the direction of the President, the U.S. military has taken decisive defensive action to protect U.S. personnel abroad by killing Qasem Soleimani, the head of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps-Quds Force, a U.S.-designated Foreign Terrorist Organization,” the statement read. “General Soleimani was actively developing plans to attack American diplomats and service members in Iraq and throughout the region.”
Soleimani and the Quds Force “were responsible for the deaths of hundreds of American and coalition service members and the wounding of thousands more. He had orchestrated attacks on coalition bases in Iraq over the last several months — including the attack on December 27th — culminating in the death and wounding of additional American and Iraqi personnel,” the statement said.
One U.S. civilian contractor was killed and several service members were wounded in the Dec. 27 rocket attack on the K1 military base used by U.S. and coalition forces in northern Iraq. The attack led to retaliatory U.S. military strikes in Iraq and Syria Sunday against the Iranian-backed militia the U.S. blamed for the Dec. 27 attack, which in turn led hundreds of pro-Iranian protesters to attempt to storm the U.S. embassy in Baghdad on New Year’s Eve.
Thursday’s strike against Soleimani “was aimed at deterring future Iranian attack plans,” the statement continued. “The United States will continue to take all necessary action to protect our people and our interests wherever they are around the world.”
U.S. reaction to the strike was largely split down party lines.
“The defensive actions the U.S. has taken against #Iran & its proxies are consistent with clear warnings they have received,” Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Florida), a member of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, said on Twitter. “They chose to ignore these warnings because they believed @POTUS was constrained from acting by our domestic political divisions. They badly miscalculated.”
“Trump Admin owes a full explanation of airstrike reports — all the facts — to Congress & the American people,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Connecticut) of the Senate Armed Services Committee posted to Twitter. “The present authorizations for use of military force in no way cover starting a possible new war. This step could bring the most consequential military confrontation in decades. My immediate concern is for our brave Americans serving in harm’s way.”
Also responding to the strike on Twitter, Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif called it an “act of international terrorism” on the part of the U.S.
“Targeting & assassinating General Soleimani — THE most effective force fighting Daesh (ISIS), Al Nusrah, Al Qaeda et al — is extremely dangerous & a foolish escalation,” Zarif said. “The US bears responsibility for all consequences of its rogue adventurism.”
Reuters earlier had reported the deaths of Soleimani and al-Muhandis, citing al-Assadi.
ABC News’ Elizabeth McLaughlin, Matt McGarry, Megan Hughes and Marc Nathanson contributed to this report.
