ON THE DAY U.S. FORCES KILLED SOLEIMANI, THEY LAUNCHED ANOTHER RECRET OPERATION TARGETING A SENIOR IRANIAN OFFICIAL IN YEMEN By John Hudson, Missy Ryan and Josh Dawsey Jan. 10, 2020 at 12:20 p.m. EST
On the day the U.S. military killed a top Iranian commander in Baghdad, U.S. forces carried out another top secret mission against a senior Iranian military official in Yemen, according to U.S. officials.
The strike targeting Abdul Reza Shahlai, a financier and key commander of Iran’s elite Quds Force who has been active in Yemen, did not result in his death, according to four U.S. officials familiar with the matter.
The unsuccessful operation may indicate that the Trump administration’s killing of Maj. Gen. Qasem Soleimani last week was part of a broader operation than previously explained, raising questions about whether the mission was designed to cripple the leadership of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps or solely to prevent an imminent attack on Americans as originally stated.
U.S. military operations in Yemen, where a civil war has created the world's worst humanitarian crisis, are shrouded in secrecy. U.S. officials said the operation against Shahlai remains highly classified, and many declined to offer details other than to say it was not successful.
Officials at the Pentagon and in Florida were monitoring both strikes and had discussed announcing them together, had they gone well, officials said.
“If we had killed him, we’d be bragging about it that same night,” a senior U.S. official said, who like others spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a classified military operation.
Another senior official said the two strikes were authorized around the same time and that the United States did not disclose the Shahlai mission because it did not go according to plan. The official said Shahlai may be targeted in the future, though both countries have signaled an interest in de-escalating the crisis.
The rationale for the Trump administration’s decision to kill Soleimani has come under scrutiny in Congress, with House lawmakers approving a resolution on Thursday to restrict the president’s authority to strike Iran without congressional approval.
Defense and State Department officials said the strike against Soleimani saved “dozens” if not “hundreds” of American lives under imminent threat. The strike against Shahlai potentially complicates that argument.
“This suggests a mission with a longer planning horizon and a larger objective, and it really does call into question why there was an attempt to explain this publicly on the basis of an imminent threat,” said Suzanne Maloney, an Iran scholar at the Brookings Institution. The Trump administration views Shahlai as a particularly potent adversary.
The State Department offered a $15 million reward last month for information leading to Shahlai and the disruption of the IRGC’s financial mechanisms. The announcement said that Shahlai is based in Yemen and has a “long history of involvement in attacks targeting the U.S. and our allies, including in the 2011 plot against the Saudi ambassador” at an Italian restaurant in Washington.
U.S. officials have alleged Shahlai, born around 1957, is linked to attacks against U.S. forces in Iraq, including a sophisticated 2007 raid in which Iranian-backed militiamen abducted and killed five Americans troops in the city of Karbala.
In a news conference last year, Brian Hook, the special representative for Iran, said the United States remains “gravely concerned by his presence in Yemen and potential role in providing advanced weaponry of the kind we have interdicted to the Houthis,” who continue to battle a Saudi-led coalition for control of Yemen.
Iran has provided support and training to the Houthi rebels in their battle against a coalition backed by Saudi Arabia, Iran’s regional foe. It is unclear why the operation did not succeed. The Pentagon, State Department and White House declined to comment.
The killing of Soleimani, the first U.S. targeted killing of a senior member of a foreign military since World War II, prompted Iran to retaliate early Wednesday in Iraq by firing ballistic missiles at U.S. locations there, though no casualties were reported.
Following the strike, President Trump said the United States would respond by imposing economic sanctions on Iran, and noted that the “United States is ready to embrace peace with all who seek it."
Trump’s top aides have continued to tout the “imminent” nature of the threat from Soleimani, though have been less precise about the timing. “There is no doubt that there were a series of imminent attacks being plotted by Qasem Soleimani,” Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told Fox News on Friday. “We don’t know precisely when and we don’t know precisely where, but it was real.”
Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Defense Secretary Mark Esper have likewise supported the case for an imminent plot.
“Did it exactly say who, what, when, where? No,” Milley told reporters this week. “But he was planning, coordinating and synchronizing significant combat operations against U.S. military forces in the region, and it was imminent.” Milley continued to emphatically defend the intelligence during a classified briefing with members of Congress on Wednesday, according to a person familiar with the matter.
Some lawmakers left the meeting complaining about the lack of specifics about the intelligence.
“I believe this administration is after the fact trying to piece together a rationale for its action that was impulsive, reckless and put this country’s security at risk,” said Democratic Rep. Gerry Connolly of Virginia.
Republican Sen. Mike Lee of Utah called it “probably the worst briefing, at least on a military issue, I’ve seen in nine years I’ve been here.” Republican leaders in Congress have stood behind the president’s decision to take out an Iranian commander linked to the deaths of U.S. soldiers following the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003.
The operation targeting Shahlai occurs as the United Nations presses for a political solution to the war in Yemen, which began in 2015 when a Saudi-led military coalition launched its campaign against the Houthi rebels. The Saudi-backed Yemeni government has struggled to regain the upper hand against the Houthis, allowing a massive humanitarian crisis to fester in which tens of thousands of Yemenis have died from fighting, deprivation or disease.
U.S. officials believe that Iran has steadily expanded its support to the Houthis, placing what they say is a small number of Iranian operatives in Yemen to advise the rebel campaign. Experts say a larger number of Lebanese Hezbollah personnel are also helping the rebels.
The Trump administration has showcased apparent Iranian weapons that have been intercepted or recovered in and around Yemen as proof that Iran is arming the Houthi rebels, including sophisticated missiles used to target Saudi Arabia.
Experts say the Saudi-led coalition has dramatically reduced the tempo of its airstrikes against Houthi targets in recent months as the Yemeni rebels have largely halted their missile attacks into Saudi Arabia. Houthi leaders are divided between those who want to demonstrate loyalty to Iran and those who are open to striking a deal with their neighbor to the north.
According to the Long War Journal, which tracks counterterrorism operations overseas, the United States conducted eight strikes against militants in Yemen in 2019, down from a high of about 125 strikes in 2017. The strikes have targeted al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and the local branch of the Islamic State.
The attempted strike on Shahlai also marks a departure for the Pentagon's mission in Yemen, which has sought to avoid direct involvement in fighting between Houthi forces and those backed by the Saudi-led coalition. In 2018, the military halted a program in which U.S. planes refueled Gulf combat jets amid criticism of the civilian casualties caused by coalition air sorties.
"Exclusive: Americans say Soleimani's killing made US less safe, Trump 'reckless' on Iran"
The jihadists are poised for a comeback.
By Ali H. Soufan
Mr. Soufan is a former F.B.I. special agent and the author of “Anatomy of Terror.”
Jan. 14, 2020
Protesters calling for an overhaul of Iraq’s political system in Baghdad on Friday. Instability in Iraq could open the way for an Islamic State resurgence there. Sergey Ponomarev for The New York Times
In 2016, Donald Trump, then a candidate for president, described Barack Obama as the “founder of ISIS.” In the end, it may be Mr. Trump who comes to be known not as the terrorist group’s founder, but as its savior.
The Islamic State has been weakened considerably since its peak in 2015, when it controlled a territory the size of Britain, but the Trump administration’s targeted killing of Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani may have poised the group for a comeback. Just as the misguided American invasion of Iraq in 2003 revitalized Al Qaeda, some 17 years later, a return to chaos in the same country may yet do the same for the Islamic State.
Granted, the White House was correct to identify General Suleimani, the leader of Iran’s Quds Force, as an enemy of the United States. Using the militia groups he cultivated and controlled, he was responsible for the deaths of hundreds of coalition soldiers in the late 2000s and early 2010s. But war in the Middle East is nothing if not complex; General Suleimani’s proxies also indirectly served American interests by fighting the Islamic State — to great effect.
Still, contrary to the breathless eulogies to him in Iran, he was not some indispensable hero who single-handedly defeated the Islamic State. Other commanders will fill his shoes, if not in star power then at least in strategic expertise. The real boon for the jihadists will be the second-order effects of his death.
First, and most obviously, American influence in Iraq is now living on borrowed time. One of those killed alongside General Suleimani, Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis .. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/03/world/middleeast/iraq-iran-airstrike-al-muhandis.html , was the deputy commander of the Popular Mobilization Force, a coalition of pro-Iranian militias that nominally form part of the Iraqi armed forces. For many Iraqis, that made the strike an attack against Iraq as well as Iran, and put the Iraqi government, which already has a tense relationship with the United States, in an even tougher bind.
Recognizing the heightened tensions, the 6,000 American troops in the country have switched their focus to defending Americans in Iraq, rather than fighting the Islamic State or training Iraqi forces to do so. American allies including Germany and Britain have begun pulling their own forces .. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/07/world/middleeast/nato-troops-iraq.html .. from the country, while the Coalition to Defeat ISIS has suspended its activities .. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/05/us/politics/us-isis-iran.html .. with no date set for resumption. These forces may not have been as visible as those from the United States, but their work behind the scenes — in intelligence, logistics and training — has been just as vital.
Signs outside the Baghdad airport in homage to Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani of Iran and Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, an Iraqi militia leader, who were killed there by an American drone strike on Jan. 3. Sergey Ponomarev for The New York Times
Second,the chaos threatens Iraq’s stability. Tehran responded to the strike on General Suleimani with missile attacks on two American-run military bases last week. But it’s unlikely this will be the end of Iran’s retaliation. Iranian military strategy is defined by asymmetry — and particularly by the use of militant proxies. Under a screen of plausible deniability, Iran will most likely work to drive the United States out of Iraq.
In this, the Iranians will be brutal. During the American occupation — before the rise of the Islamic State made strange bedfellows of Washington and Tehran — Iranian proxies often exceeded Sunni extremists in terms of the number of casualties they inflicted on American forces. These proxies have lost no time in returning to attacks on American interests. On Sunday, four days after Iran’s missile strikes, a rocket attack on another installation that houses American forces wounded four Iraqi service members .. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-iraq-security-base/four-wounded-in-attack-on-iraqi-military-base-that-houses-us-forces-idUSKBN1ZB0I0 .
A conflict between Iranian proxies and the United States will tear at Iraq’s fragile governing structures, creating a power vacuum for the Islamic State to exploit. Iraq already has only a caretaker government. The prime minister, Adel Abdul Mahdi, resigned in November and has been staying on pending his replacement. The country’s governance depends on achieving a precarious balance among different ethnic, tribal and religious constituencies. When those blocs are forced to take sides between the United States and Iran, the balance becomes all but unattainable and Iraq’s viability as a state is jeopardized. Add to that the harm to counterterrorism operations brought about by the “pause” in coalition assistance, and you have a combustible mix.
Third, and perhaps worst of all, General Suleimani’s death portends yet more sectarianism in Iraq. The parliamentary vote on Jan. 5 to expel American troops passed on the strength of votes from Shiite lawmakers; members of Parliament representing Iraq’s other main factions, the Kurds and the Sunni Arabs, abstained.
Extremist groups thrive on this kind of division. Early last decade, the openly sectarian policies of Iraq’s prime minister at the time, Nuri al-Maliki, created a wave of communal violence. Sunni Arabs looked for protection anywhere they could find it, and the Islamic State was quick to exploit that need. Having built support that way before, the Islamic State will not hesitate to do so again, given the opportunity.
Moreover, the Iranian response to General Suleimani’s killing is likely to include an escalation in its conflict with Saudi Arabia, which is framed as a battle between Sunnis and Shiites. Ratcheting up these tensions will create still more openings for Sunni extremists such as the Islamic State.
Like all terrorist groups, the Islamic State draws fuel from chaos and division. The killing of General Suleimani promises much of both to come. The Islamic State still has deep pockets, affiliates around the world, and a knack for recruitment. General Suleimani’s death will have its leaders rubbing their hands in anticipation.
The damage is done. Without a major cooling of tensions, a jihadist resurgence might now be all but inevitable.
Ali H. Soufan (@Ali_H_Soufan .. https://twitter.com/Ali_H_Soufan ) is a former F.B.I. special agent and the author, most recently, of “Anatomy of Terror: From the Death of Bin Laden to the Rise of the Islamic State.”
REPORT: TRUMP CITED GOP SENATE IMPEACHMENT PRESSURE AS REASON TO KILL SOLEIMANI By Jonathan Chait January 2020
Deep inside a long, detailed Wall Street Journal report about President Trump’s foreign policy advisers is an explosive nugget: “Mr. Trump, after the strike, told associates he was under pressure to deal with Gen. Soleimani from GOP senators he views as important supporters in his coming impeachment trial in the Senate, associates said.” This is a slightly stronger iteration of a fact the New York Times reported three days ago, to wit, “pointed out to one person who spoke to him on the phone last week that he had been pressured to take a harder line on Iran by some Republican senators whose support he needs now more than ever amid an impeachment battle.” https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=153233728
Looks an example of Trump making an important foreign policy decision for his own personal domestic political benefit.
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