Israeli intelligence played a direct role in the US drone attack that killed former commander of Iran's elite Quds Corps Maj. Gen. Qasem Soleimani on Jan. 3, 2020, a new investigative piece by Yahoo News reveals.
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Yahoo interviewed over 15 members of the US defense and security establishment and members of former US President Donald Trump's administration. According to the findings, a joint US-Israel command and communications center was operating out of Tel Aviv to track Soleimani's cellular phone use patterns.
The Yahoo report also claims that Soleimani switched between at least three cellular devices while on the fateful flight from Damascus to Baghdad, after which he was targeted by US drones.
The report also says that Israeli intelligence operatives provided the Americans with the numbers of the cellular phones Soleimani was using, which allowed him to be located in Baghdad after his arrival was confirmed.
The Israeli Embassy in Washington did not comment on the allegations in the Yahoo report.
According to Yahoo, a squad of Delta Force snipers also took part in the targeted killing of Soleimani. The snipers reported followed the convoy that took Soleimani from the airport in Baghdad to the street, where they opened fire and shot one of the convoy drivers, killing him. After the driver was dead, a hellfire missile fired from a drone hit the car and destroyed it.
In addition, Yahoo reported that the Kurdish independence movement in Iraq helped with the assassination, sending a Kurdish expert to the site of the missile strike to identify Soleimani's remains and take DNA samples. The Kurds apparently managed to retain a sample of his DNA to confirm that the Quds Force leader had been eliminated before the media reports went out.
Kurdish actors also reportedly played another part in the killing, Yahoo said, through an elite force of Peshmerga fighters who disguised themselves as airport baggage handlers, prepared to kill Soleimani if he happened to leave the airport by an unplanned route.
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