By: Sammi Ibrahem,Sr
Hajj Qassem Soleimani and Abu Mahdi Al-Muhandis were not taking unusual security measures. On the contrary, their movement was almost natural and semi-public. In Baghdad, the date of the arrival of the “Al-Hajji” from Tehran or elsewhere was known to the Iraqi capital by most workers in public affairs. He knew who had met, and who would meet. The two men were close to death many times. At the axis of the fighting, in Lebanon, Iraq and Syria, or at the targets of the Nazi Gestapo Mossad and CIA killers more than once. But the decision not to assassinate them previously was a result of the power of deterrence in the axis of resistance.
And their assassination at dawn today was not a complicated security operation, but it is, in the political and military balance, the cruel process to which the Axis has been exposed, since Hajj Imad Mughniyeh’s martyrdom, to say the least, and at a broader level. A mean blow opens the door of madness in the region. Whoever makes the decision is either stupid and does not know what to do, or, most likely, it opens the door to a war that was prepared for it in advance. It is a decision that the United States wants him to say to the axis of resistance that “your deterrent force is eroding, and nothing will prevent us from preventing you from expelling us from the region, and we will target all your leaders and your strengths.” It is a “zero” equation, which the axis of the resistance will have to deal with only with what necessitates revenge, not just to seek revenge, but to restore consideration to its deterrent power and consolidate its achievements over decades.
The assassination of the leader of the Quds Force in the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, Hajj Qassem Soleimani, and the deputy head of the Popular Mobilization Authority, Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, in Baghdad, before midnight Thursday – Friday (2-3 January 2020), cannot pass like other events in the region . It is a “zero” equation, which the axis of the resistance will have to deal with only with what necessitates revenge, not just to seek revenge, but to restore consideration to its deterrent power and consolidate its achievements over decades. The assassination of the leader of the Quds Force in the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, Hajj Qassem Soleimani, and the deputy head of the Popular Mobilization Authority, Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, in Baghdad, before midnight Thursday – Friday (2-3 January 2020), cannot pass like other events in the region . It is a “zero” equation, which the axis of the resistance will have to deal with only with what necessitates revenge, not just to seek revenge, but to restore consideration to its deterrent power and consolidate its achievements over decades. The assassination of the leader of the Quds Force in the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, Hajj Qassem Soleimani, and the deputy head of the Popular Mobilization Authority, Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, in Baghdad, before midnight Thursday – Friday (2-3 January 2020), cannot pass like other events in the region .
Soleimani is the most famous Iranian general, Hajj Imad Mughniyeh’s partner in defending Lebanon in the July-August 2006 war, the first supporter of the Iraqi resistance against the American-British occupation of Iraq, the engineer of the defense lines of Damascus, and the field partner to the Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in the major Syrian battles (as a battle The restoration of Aleppo, to name a few), the man who negotiated with Russian President Vladimir Putin to persuade him to interfere in Syria, and the partner of Turkish intelligence chief Haqqan Fedan in the North and other Syrian settlements, and the first link between Iran and the Palestinian resistance factions.
During his reign, the Qods Force in the Revolutionary Guard turned into a regional military superpower, operating as a military and “logistical” support force in the areas from Yemen in the south, beyond Iraq in the north, through Lebanon, Syria, and Palestine, especially in the Gaza Strip, where it has a major share in developing Resistance capabilities.
Hajj Qassim Soleimani spent on the road from Baghdad Airport to the Iraqi capital. It is the same, in the eyes of the axis of resistance, the Jerusalem road. He was coming from Damascus, so the engineer went out to meet him at the airport. They left in a simple “procession”, consisting of only two cars. They were targeted by American planes, shortly after their departure from the airport, so that everyone in the two cars, including Soleimani and the engineer, official of the eminence in the popular crowd, Muhammad Reza Al Jabri, and a number of members of the crowd.
As for the engineer, (his real name is Jamal Muhammad Ja`far) he is, in practice, the chief of staff of the “Popular Mobilization Authority”. The former Member of Parliament, he returned to Baghdad in 2003, coming from Tehran after more than twenty years’ displacement. His opposition to the rule of “the Baath” and President Saddam Hussein led him to the end of the day as the leader of the “Badr Corps”, the mid-eighties. During that period, he gained extensive military experience, which he soon developed in resisting the American occupation and fighting ISIS. The 60-year-old, the son of Basra, is accused of a number of “terrorist” cases, such as the Kuwait bombings that targeted the US and French embassies in 1983.
Washington was quick to adopt their assassination, through an official who spoke to Reuters. Their assassination came in a highly complex Iraqi political and military context. A popular uprising by Washington seeks to invest its results in its favor, build on it to reduce Tehran’s influence in Mesopotamia, and implement a coup against the popular crowd and the Iraqi resistance factions. As for the military, the American occupation forces resorted, last Sunday, to attacking the headquarters of the popular crowd at the Iraqi-Syrian border, near the city of Qaim, which led to the death of more than 25 fighters, and dozens wounded. This was not a response to a topical targeting of an American military base in Baghdad, but rather the endeavor of the occupation forces to install new political bases, the title of which is the separation of Syria and Iraq, and the curbing of the “crowd” and the rest of the axis of resistance forces in Mesopotamia.
The American-Gulf rumor machine was launched immediately after the crime was committed. The names of leaders of the Lebanese Hezbollah movement were deliberated to say that they were martyred with Soleimani and the engineer, but Iraqi and Lebanese sources denied that there was any martyr from the party in the operation. Then, the Saudi Al-Arabiya channel reported that the Marines arrested the leader of the Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq Party, Sheikh Qais Khazali, and the leader of the Badr Hadi al-Amiri organization. The news is not true, but it is an indication of the list of American goals in “The Land of Blackness.” Al-Khazali and Al-Amri were next to the engineer and other leaders of the popular crowd and the factions of the Iraqi resistance, leading the masses that stormed the American embassy compound in Baghdad last Tuesday, in an expression of anger at the existing aggression.
The assassination of Soleimani and the engineer is not a passing event. It is a decision taken by the American administration to ignite the region, at the very least, in an attempt to return time, erase the results produced by the resistance of the axis of resistance in Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, Iraq and Palestine, and to seek more aggression that is intended to destroy all the cumulative achievements of this axis. Without any “information” from any “reliable source” on the axis, his reaction can be expected. There are red lines that were specifically shot down by Soleimani’s assassination … Accordingly, the United States will pay a heavy price. The red lines do not fall from one side.
