The same day the United States killed top Iranian commander Qassem Soleimani, the military launched another secret mission targeting a senior Iranian military official in Yemen.
The operation targeting Abdul Reza Shahlai, a financier and key commander of Iran’s elite Quds Force, was unsuccessful, four U.S. officials familiar with the matter told the Washington Post.
Military officials discussed publicly disclosing the missions together had they both been a success.
“If we had killed him, we’d be bragging about it that same night,” a senior U.S. official said.
Another senior official said Shahlai could still be targeted in the future. The State Department offered a $15 million reward in December for information leading to Shahlai. The department’s announcement said Shahlai was 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 a restaurant in Washington, D.C.
It’s not clear why the mission against Shahlai was not successful. But it raises the possibility that Soleimani’s killing was part of a broader mission than previously disclosed.
President Trump’s decision to take out Soleimani in a targeted drone strike near Baghdad’s airport last week has been scrutinized by Democrats and a few Republicans, who have cited the risk of escalating tensions with Iran and because Trump did not seek congressional approval.
Iran retaliated by firing more than a dozen missiles at two Iraqi bases housing U.S. troops. The missile strikes did not result in any U.S. casualties.
House lawmakers passed a nonbinding resolution Thursday to curb Trump’s authority to use military force against Iran.
The Trump administration argued the rationale for the strike against Soleimani was an imminent plot against the U.S.
“There is no doubt that there were a series of imminent attacks being plotted by Qassem 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, echoed those comments to reporters.
“Did it exactly say who, what, when, where? No,” Milley said this week. “But he was planning, coordinating, and synchronizing significant combat operations against U.S. military forces in the region, and it was imminent.”
