Iranian General Qassem Soleimani was killed on an access road near Iraq’s infamous “Route Irish” — a road connecting Baghdad International Airport to the city, where Iraqi insurgents once wreaked havoc on U.S. forces.
In the early 2000s, Route Irish, as the military dubbed it, was considered the most dangerous road in the world. The six-mile highway was a lifeline for the country, allowing supplies and people to be shuttled in and out of the capital. That made it an ideal target for Iraqi insurgents, some of whom likely received support from Soleimani’s infamous Quds Force.
A U.S. MQ-9 Reaper drone killed Soleimani in a missile strike while his convoy was driving on an access road near Route Irish in al Sweib, an area southwest of Baghdad. The strike also killed Abu Mahdi al Muhandis, the deputy leader of Iraq’s Iranian-backed Popular Mobilization Forces and founder of Kataib Hezbollah, a terrorist group that killed a U.S. contractor last week. Videos taken at the scene showed that the vehicle was left a tangled, burning mess after the missile hit.
“I do think that there is some irony, in this place where so many Americans were killed — and a number of them killed because of his efforts, his handiwork, that he gets killed in the same place,” Ken Pollack, a former CIA analyst who studies the Middle East, told the Washington Examiner.
During the height of the war, U.S. forces were killed and injured along the road. Insurgent forces knew that an attack on Route Irish had a high likelihood of killing the Americans who used it. Roadside bombs, improvised explosive devices, and shootings were common.
According to @nafisehkBBC, this clip shows the aftermath of rocket attack on the Baghdad Diplomatic Support Center, near Baghdad airport. Many US diplomats/ intelligence officers are based. | pic.twitter.com/HkBuuG4aFS
— Mike (@Doranimated) January 2, 2020
“So many times [an attack] happened just before I got to the place or just after I was there,” an Indian driver named Samson said in an April 2005 interview.
Soleimani’s Quds Force, a branch of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, was a key source of support for insurgents starting in the early years of the United States’s presence in Iraq. In addition to guns and other small arms, the Iranians provided explosively formed penetrators — devices that use an explosion to drive metal through American armor. Last year, the Department of Defense estimated Iran was responsible for the deaths of at least 603 U.S. troops in Iraq.
Insurgent attacks on the road were not limited to military personnel. In April 2005, U.S. aid worker Marla Ruzicka, founder of the Campaign for Innocent Victims in Conflict, was one of 13 people killed by a roadside bomb on the route.
By 2005, U.S. forces dramatically overhauled their approach to counteracting the attacks. Lt. Col. Michael Harris of the Army’s 3rd Infantry Division recalled in 2005 when his commander told him he was being given a very important job.
“Oh great, I get to go get Zarqawi,” Harris said. Abu Musab al Zarqawi was the leader of al Qaeda in Iraq at the time, and his reign of terror was responsible for countless U.S. and Iraqi deaths. Instead, Harris was ordered to keep Route Irish safe.
To do so, Harris put his men on the ground in nearby neighborhoods, installed barriers, and installed checkpoints. Fourteen car bombs and 48 IEDs detonated along Route Irish between April and June 2005. Between September and November, there were no car bombs and nine IEDs.
Route Irish has since been repaved and revitalized with palm trees and grass lining the highway — a far cry from its history as the world’s most dangerous road.
