The Israeli army is on heightened alert, Friday, January 3, over concerns Iran could use its proxies in the region to strike, such as the Lebanese movement Hezbollah to the north, the Palestinian militant group Hamas, and the Islamic Jihad in Gaza. Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu defended the U.S. decision to launch an airstrike that killed Iranian commander Qassem Soleimani.
–––––––––
READ MORE: General Qassem Soleimani, the larger-than-life head of Iran's elite Quds Force, had escaped death many times, but he couldn't flee the U.S. drone-launched missile that struck his convoy shortly after he arrived in Baghdad from Lebanon.
The repercussions from the targeted strike on a road adjacent to Baghdad International Airport in the middle of the night Friday will last much longer than the concussion of the blast.
Soleimani was Iran's most important military strategist and tactician in Tehran's long-standing campaign to expand Shi'ite and Iranian influence throughout the Middle East. Dexter Filkins, a veteran chronicler of Middle East conflict, described him in a profile in the New Yorker magazine as "the single most powerful operative in the Middle East today."
[ Ссылка ]
