U.S. Killed Iranian General, Almost Started WWIII Over a Lie

By AFP Staff

Earlier this month, The New York Times rolled out an article citing sources in Iraqi intelligence, which alleges that the attacks on U.S. forces that President Donald Trump used to justify the killing of Iranian Gen. Qasem Soleimani were actually carried out by radical Islamic terrorists in ISIS not Iranian-backed militias. If this is the case, the U.S. almost started World War III with Iran over a terrible mistake.

Here is what the Times reported: “Iraqi military and intelligence officials have raised doubts about who fired the rockets . . . saying they believe it is unlikely that the militia the United States blamed for the attack” was responsible.

Using the Arabic name for ISIS, Brig. Gen. Ahmed Adnan, the Iraqi chief of intelligence for the federal police, told the Times, “All the indications are that it was Daesh. . . . We know Daesh’s movements.”

On the campaign trail in 2015 and 2016, Trump repeatedly promised American voters that he would get the U.S. out of the “stupid wars” in the Middle East. Trump came close to starting a new war with Iran on Jan. 2, however, when he ordered the assassination of Soleimani, who according to Iraq’s prime minister was on a mission of peace. Trump used recent rocket attacks on U.S. forces on Iranian-backed Shia militias in Iraq to justify the killing.

Watch the video below to see the moment Soleimani was killed by a U.S. drone.

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This new bombshell report undermines Trump’s justification, however, meaning he ordered the murder of a top Iranian military officer over a bogus claim.

Other Iraqi officials reportedly backed the claim, telling the Times, “Based on circumstantial evidence and long experience in the area where the attack took place,” there is good reason to be skeptical about Trump’s claim that the Shia militia group called Khataib Hezbollah was behind it.

The Times added in detail:

The rockets were launched from a Sunni Muslim part of Kirkuk Province notorious for attacks by the Islamic State, a Sunni terrorist group, which would have made the area hostile territory for a Shiite militia like Khataib Hezbollah.

Khataib Hezbollah has not had a presence in Kirkuk Province since 2014.

The Islamic State, however, had carried out three attacks relatively close to the base in the 10 days before the attack on K-1. Iraqi intelligence officials sent reports to the Americans in November and December warning that ISIS intended to target K-1, an Iraqi air base in Kirkuk Province that is also used by American forces…

These facts all point to the Islamic State, Iraqi officials say.

The U.S. military and the Trump insist that they have solid intelligence that Shia-backed forces were behind the rocket attacks, but they have not released any evidence to substantiate this.

The Iraqis are convinced the rockets came from ISIS-controlled territory.

“We as Iraqi forces cannot even come to this area [where the rockets were launched from] unless we have a large force because it is not secure,” Adnan told the Times. “How could it be that someone who doesn’t know the area could come here and find that firing position and launch an attack?”