{"id":32515,"date":"2020-01-04T18:25:11","date_gmt":"2020-01-04T18:25:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/navytimes\/uncategorized\/2020\/01\/04\/explainer-inside-the-lawful-killing-of-qassim-suleimani\/"},"modified":"2026-08-08T19:36:01","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T19:36:01","slug":"explainer-inside-the-lawful-killing-of-qassim-suleimani","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/navytimes\/news\/your-navy\/2020\/01\/04\/explainer-inside-the-lawful-killing-of-qassim-suleimani\/","title":{"rendered":"Explainer: Inside the lawful killing of Qassim Suleimani"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The Jan. 3 targeted assassination of Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps Commander Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani<\/a> significantly hiked direct hostilities between the United States and the Islamic Republic of Iran. It marks the first acknowledged intentional killing of a senior adversary during four decades of hostilities between Iran and the United States.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is highly likely that United States possessed detailed intelligence about Suleimani\u2019s travel plans, destination, and routes. This could be simply the result of superior electronic intelligence gathering and tracking the flight of his aircraft to Baghdad. Former U.S. commanders and intelligence officials said that the attack \u201cspecifically relied on classified \u2018informants, electronic intercepts, reconnaissance aircraft and other surveillance.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The MQ-9 Reaper<\/a> missile strikes were launched while the Quds Force\u2019s commander and his convoy departed Baghdad International Airport soon after his arrival \u2014 although the base from which the drones operated has not been identified and the reason for Suleimani\u2019s flight to Baghdad hasn\u2019t been fully disclosed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to an Iraqi general, Suleimani and Mohammed Redha al-Jabri, a senior official in Iraq\u2019s state-sponsored Popular Mobilization Forces, arrived by plane at Baghdad International Airport from Syria.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Two cars stopped at the bottom of the airplane steps and picked them up. The fatal U.S. strike occurred soon after Suleimani and his party deplaned and as they were departing the airport.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The strike reportedly was the second attack at the airport within hours. An earlier attack on late Thursday involved three rockets that did not appear to have caused any injuries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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In this Sept. 18, 2016, photo provided by an official website of the office of the Iranian supreme leader, Revolutionary Guard Gen. Qassem Soleimani, center, attends a meeting in Tehran, Iran. (Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader via AP)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

What sparked the decision to kill Suleimani?<\/b><\/p>\n\n\n\n

On Dec. 27, more than 30 rockets struck K-1 Air Base in Kirkuk, wounding four U.S. service members and killing an American contractor. Blame soon fell on Katai\u2019ib Hezbollah, a militia that operates as part of the Iranian-backed Popular Mobilization Forces.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Two days later, U.S. forces struck back at Katai\u2019ib Hezbollah posts in Iraq and Syria, killing and wounding dozens of fighters, including senior militia commanders.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Following funerals for many of the militiamen, on New Year\u2019s Eve a mob of their sympathizers stormed into Baghdad\u2019s Green Zone and began assaulting and besieging the U.S. Embassy there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They burned the embassy\u2019s reception area, planted militia flags on its roof and scrawled graffiti on its walls.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

No injuries or deaths were reported and the militia members withdrew on New Year\u2019s afternoon without testing the armed Marines guarding the compound.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A Pentagon statement later blamed Suleimani as the leader who \u201chad orchestrated attacks on coalition bases in Iraq over the last several months,\u201d including the lethal strike on K-1, and \u201capproved the attacks on the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

President Donald J. Trump already had warned that Iran would \u201cbe held fully responsible\u201d for the embassy assault.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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In this March 27, 2015, photo provided by an official website of the office of the Iranian supreme leader, commander of Iran’s Quds Force, Qassem Soleimani prays in a religious ceremony at a mosque in the residence of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in Tehran. (Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader via AP)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo stated that he, Secretary of Defense Mark Esper and Gen. Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, traveled \u201cto brief the President on the activities that have taken place in the Middle East over the course of the last 72 hours.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Secretary Pompeo insisted that the United States \u201cwill not stand for the Islamic Republic of Iran to take actions that put American men and women in jeopardy.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

More importantly, he explained the reason for retaliatory airstrikes and foretold the intent to \u201ctake decisive action.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then on Jan. 1, Pompeo\u2019s State Department issued a Level 4 Do Not Travel Warning and noted that \u201cDue to risks to civil aviation operating within or in the vicinity of Iraq, the Federal Aviation Administration has issued a Notice to Airmen and\/or a Special Federal Aviation Regulation.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the heart of his concerns was the understanding that traveling to Iraq would put an American citizen at risk of terrorism, kidnapping or armed conflict.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAnti-U.S. sectarian militias may also threaten U.S. citizens and Western companies throughout Iraq. Attacks by improvised explosive devices (IEDs) occur in many areas of the country, including Baghdad,\u201d it warned.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOn Dec. 31, 2019, the Embassy suspended public consular services, until further notice, as a result of damage done by Iranian-backed terrorist attacks on the Embassy compound. U.S. Consulate General Erbil remains open and continues to provide consular services. On October 18, 2018, the Department of State ordered the suspension of operations at the U.S. Consulate General in Basrah. That institution has not reopened.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Between mid-May 2019 and Jan. 3, the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad had issued nine Demonstration and Security Alerts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the wake of Suleimani<\/a>\u2019s assassination, President Trump announced that the Iranian \u201cwas plotting imminent and sinister attacks on American diplomats and American military personnel, but we caught him in the act, and terminated him.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Initially, Pompeo also indicated that the strike had thwarted an \u201cimminent\u201d attack in the region, but declined to detail the intelligence on which he based his statement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Special Representative for Iran, Brian H. Hook, told Al Arabiya that he had seen \u201call of the intelligence\u201d on the action and suggested that \u201cAmerican personnel and facilities in Lebanon, Iraq, Syria and beyond\u201d were the planned targets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Suleimani<\/a> “was actively developing plans to attack American diplomats and service members in Iraq and throughout the region,\u201d added a Pentagon statement, which called the strike a \u201cdecisive defensive\u201d action aimed at deterring future Iranian attacks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Adm. Isoroku Yamamoto, Imperial Japanese Navy (1884-1943), an official portrait, by Shugaku Homma, 1943. (U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Targeting enemy commanders is lawful and we\u2019ve done it before<\/b><\/p>\n\n\n\n

On April 18, 1943, the United States targeted and destroyed the aircraft carrying Adm. Isoroku Yamamoto, the architect of the attack on Pearl Harbor and the commander of Combined Fleet of the Imperial Japanese Navy, while it was preparing to land at Balalae Airfield on Bougainville in the Solomon Islands.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Admirals Chester W. Nimitz and William F. Halsey, Jr. \u2014 acting on decoded intercepts of Yamamoto\u2019s planned itinerary, which had been read by Navy code breakers \u2014 authorized a joint force strike, led by long range Army Air Force P-38 Lightnings, part of AirSlos (Air Forces, Solomons), and commanded by Adm. Marc A. Mitscher.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The fighters waited over water near Yamamoto\u2019s destination and ambushed the landing Japanese transport bombers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is unclear if President Franklin D. Roosevelt authorized Operation Vengeance and there is no evidence trail pointing to his direct involvement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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A painting depicts the takeover of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran in 1979. It shows U.S. Marine Sgt. Ladell Maples of Earle, Ark., left, and Cpl. Steve Kirtley of Little Rock, Ark., with their hands above their heads adorns a wall of the embassy, now partly a museum, in Tehran, Iran. Images like those of surrendering American troops carry a strong resonance for hard-liners in Iran. (Vahid Salemi\/AP)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Iran failed its fundamental obligation to protect diplomats and embassies<\/b><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Iran has a documented history of intentionally refusing to comply with international law.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Forty years ago, on Nov. 4, 1979, the US Embassy in Teheran was seized and U.S. diplomats and consular personnel held hostage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is axiomatic that there was no more fundamental prerequisite for relations between states than the inviolability of diplomatic envoys and embassies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While in the current crisis the embassy was located in Iraq, not Iran, it is apparent that Iranian forces may have been involved.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The recent involvement of Iranian-backed militias in Baghdad rekindled concern that seizing U.S. diplomats and consular personnel would trigger another lengthy hostage crisis. This is an unacceptable risk in U.S. foreign policy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The attacks on the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad occurred 40 years after the taking of the US Embassy in Tehran.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It has been suggested that the proximate cause of the 444-day Iran hostage crisis was the failure of President Jimmy Carter\u2019s administration to remove all diplomatic personnel and close the embassy when the White House granted the deposed Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, to enter the United States to receive care for terminal cancer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

President Carter apparently relied on an understanding or representations by Iran that it would honor established legal protections afforded to U.S. diplomats and Embassy staffers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Carter administration could have reduced the risk of the illegal Iranian acts had the embassy been closed down in anticipation of the admission of the Shah. U.S. personnel and classified documents could have been removed and protected from seizure and the spectacle of the hostage standoff.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Apparently, there were no contingency plans to respond even though President Carter was concerned about the risk presented by his reluctant decision to allow the Shah of Iran to enter the United States in the fall of 1979.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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President Jimmy Carter and Shah of Iran inspect the troops during a 1977 welcoming ceremony for the Shah. (National Archives)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The International Court of Justice has provided an overview of the action in United States of America v. Iran<\/a>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The case was brought before the Court by Application by the United States following the occupation of its Embassy in Tehran by Iranian militants on 4 November 1979, and the capture and holding as hostages of its diplomatic and consular staff. On a request by the United States for the indication of provisional measures, <\/i>the Court held that there was no more fundamental prerequisite for relations between States than the inviolability of diplomatic envoys and embassies, and it indicated provisional measures for ensuring the immediate restoration to the United States of the Embassy premises and the release of the hostages<\/b><\/i>. In its decision on the merits of the case, at a time when the situation complained of still persisted, <\/i>the Court, in its Judgment of 24 May 1980, found that Iran had violated and was still violating obligations owed by it to the United States under conventions in force between the two countries and rules of general international law, that the violation of these obligations engaged its responsibility, and that the Iranian Government was bound to secure the immediate release of the hostages, to restore the Embassy premises, and to make reparation for the injury caused to the United States Government.<\/b><\/i> The Court reaffirmed the cardinal importance of the principles of international law governing diplomatic and consular relations. <\/b><\/u><\/i>It pointed out that while, during the events of 4 November 1979 \u2026 [Iran] had however done nothing to prevent the attack, stop it before it reached its completion or oblige the militants to withdraw from the premises and release the hostages. The Court noted that, after 4 November 1979, certain organs of the Iranian State had endorsed the acts complained of and decided to perpetuate them, so that those acts were transformed into acts of the Iranian State. \u2026 <\/i><\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, the International Court of Justice did not render final judgment due to the release of the hostages on Inauguration Day of 1981 and the settlement of all claims.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Upon their 1981 arrival at Rhein-Main Air Base in Germany after their release from Iran, the former hostages and former Vice President Walter Mondale listen as former President Jimmy Carter speaks to the crowd. (Photograph by Staff Sgt. Lee Schading, now in the National Archives)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Now what?<\/b><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In addition to combatants and their civilian contractors, it is possible that reprisal attacks by Iran could be aimed at:<\/p>\n\n\n\n