JANUARY 3, 2019
BAGHDAD, IRAQ
12:32 A.M.
Cham Wings Flight 6Q501 touches down at Baghdad International Airport.
The Airbus A320, one of just four aircraft comprising the Syrian airline’s entire fleet, is three hours late. Officially, the cause is bad weather. But the real reason is the five men who boarded just before departure, taking seats in the forward cabin for the one-hour flight from the Syrian capital.
General Qasem Soleimani sits in the front row, as always. He wears dark slacks and a shirt buttoned to the throat, but no tie. The rest of his entourage dresses the same. The only real difference is the prominent silver ring with a stone of red carnelian worn by the general.*
Among those making the trip are loyal longtime bodyguards Hadi Taremi and Vahid Zamanian. Both are Quds Force members. The general is also accompanied by two top Iranian officials: Major General Hossein Pourjafari, Soleimani’s right-hand man and founder of the Quds spy agency, and Colonel Shahroud Mozafarri Nia, a Quds intelligence officer specializing in Syria and Lebanon.
Soleimani trusts each man completely.
The white aircraft with the dark lettering along the fuselage taxis to the large, modern terminal in Baghdad. As the plane pulls up to the gate, passengers in the rear remain seated, not making a move to leave the craft until Qasem Soleimani and his entourage exit the front doors.
The men do not walk the Jetway into the terminal. Nor do they wait in line at customs. Instead, Soleimani’s team exits down a long stairwell to the tarmac. They are met by a longtime ally, Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the gray-haired founder of the Kataib Hezbollah militia. The terrorist guides Soleimani’s party to two SUVs parked near the aircraft.
The vehicles then drive away, exiting though a cargo gate. In all, the two cars hold ten men.
General Soleimani believes he is completely secure.
But, in fact, he and his men are being followed from twenty thousand feet in the air.
CIA director Gina Haspel has been monitoring Soleimani’s travels all day. She knows that he flies commercial, often buying tickets on several different airlines before selecting one just before takeoff. She has informants in the Damascus Airport watching the general, hoping to make a positive identification and confirm which airline he is flying.
The director knows Soleimani is not flying to Iraq this evening to conduct a peace mission. Instead, the general is meeting with his militia allies to plan more attacks against US troops. Soleimani’s goal is ridding the Middle East of all American forces.
Ms. Haspel agrees that now is the time to deal with General Soleimani.
But that decision has already been made. President Trump signed off on lethal action shortly after the embassy in Baghdad was attacked five days ago.*
For years, American intelligence has compiled a list of the world’s top terror targets. Soleimani has long been among the most wanted but has avoided assassination through covert movements and stealth.
But now the general’s current location and intention to harm Americans are known beyond any doubt. Informants confirm Soleimani’s presence on Flight 6Q501. Deeper-level informants within the Quds Force have relayed the general’s movements in Syria and Lebanon over the past three days. There is even word that Soleimani is being betrayed by a close friend—similar to the Arab who informed on Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.
The drones have been circling for almost four hours.†
The actual number of unmanned aerial vehicles now over Baghdad International Airport will remain classified, but there are at least two MQ-9 Reaper drones training their high-definition cameras on the vehicles carrying Soleimani and his men.
Preparations for this moment began long before the general boarded the flight from Damascus. Armed with informant information, personnel at Al-Asad Air Base, in northern Iraq, and Al-Udeid Air Base, in the Arabian Peninsula nation of Qatar, began readying the Reapers for flight late this afternoon.
Each MQ-9 is thirty-six feet long, with a wingspan of twenty meters. Maximum takeoff weight is five tons, with much of that fuel and weapons. A propeller at the rear of the Reaper provides power.
Technicians enter the hangars housing the drones and run a series of tests on the cameras, which are capable of clearly photographing the name on a golf ball from three miles in the sky.
A small truck then tows the drones onto a runway, accompanied by two US Air Force personnel who walk alongside and conduct last-minute visual safety checks.
Thousands of miles away, remote pilots at Creech Air Force Base in Nevada fire up the engines. The drones emit the sound of a small Cessna aircraft. The pilots then push the throttles forward. Each drone labors down the runway and lifts into the air. Aloft, the Reapers soar toward Baghdad at two hundred knots. The drone launched from Iraq requires just thirty minutes to get into position; the UAV from Qatar will take five hours.
Soon, bad news: Soleimani’s flight is delayed. The operational range of the fully armed drones is fourteen hours, and the aircraft from Qatar may have to return to base if the holdup continues too long.
But then the flight crew and the CIA team tracking Soleimani’s movements catch a break. The flight to Baghdad finally departs Damascus at 10:30 p.m.
The Reaper based in Qatar will have plenty of time to do its job.
At Creech Air Force Base, thirty-five miles outside Las Vegas, two-person teams of air force pilots from the 432nd Air Expeditionary Wing monitor each Reaper. The drones remain in position over Baghdad. Video screens in front of each pilot show a clear image of two vehicles driving the perimeter road. Having been on target for several hours now, the air crews know the layout of the airport. They well understand that once the SUVs depart and head east toward the Tigris River and the heart of Baghdad, they will blend in with many other cars.
But for now, the targets are the only vehicles on the road.
It is not known whether the remote pilots are briefed on the identities of the men they will soon kill. But the officers are certainly aware these SUVs are a threat to America’s national security.
General Soleimani sits in the backseat of one Toyota vehicle, next to Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis. Two Hezbollah terrorists drive. Soleimani has ordered the four men from his entourage to ride in the other vehicle so that he and al-Muhandis can discuss strategy privately.
The airport is dark. No planes are landing so late at night, and, despite the presence of runway lights, there is little activity other than that of the two cars on the perimeter road. Baghdad, and the secret location where Soleimani will spend the night, is five miles distant. The drive into the city will take them past the Green Zone and the American embassy, the scene of Soleimani’s most recent triumph.
The general has had a long day; it is well past his preferred early bedtime of nine o’clock. But a strategy discussion is a good use of his time.
Sleep will come soon enough.
The soft propeller thrum of the drones at twenty thousand feet is imperceptible to anyone on the ground. And unlike jet aircraft, the Reaper does not leave a distinguishing white contrail in the sky. It is also the middle of the night in Iraq, which means no chance that a sunbeam reflecting off the drone will give away its position.
Back in Nevada, there is talk among the pilots about the vehicles they are tracking.
Not that it matters. In a few minutes, there will be no vehicles.
The order comes at 2:55 p.m. Las Vegas time.
It is 12:55 a.m. in Baghdad.
Qasem Soleimani is excited about the future. He is not a man given to regrets, preferring to always look forward. At sixty-two, despite his prostate issues and back pain related to his many wounds from the Iran-Iraq War, he exudes a healthy demeanor. His mind works feverishly, always thinking of ways to benefit Iran. His children are grown, he has unlimited access to drug money, and his power will only increase when he wins the Iranian presidency.
Also, it is good to be sitting in the backseat with his friend, Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis. “The Engineer,” as the sixty-five-year-old Hezbollah leader is nicknamed, has been waging terror war even longer than Soleimani. The Iraqi was a longtime foe of Saddam Hussein and has served the Quds Force as a special military adviser.
As they discuss the next wave of violence to be inflicted upon the United States, Soleimani and al-Muhandis most likely speak in the casual shorthand of two friends in complete agreement.
The driver and bodyguard sitting in the front seats know better than to speak—or listen. So the only sound in the SUV is that of Qasem Soleimani and the Engineer having a conversation.
Until it is not.
A Hellfire missile travels supersonically, so the loud sound of its rocket propellant directing the deadly weapon toward its target is a few seconds behind its actual flight path.
And at almost a thousand miles an hour, it takes a very short period of time for a Hellfire to approach a target when fired by a drone four miles up in the sky.
In addition, the drone cameras are so precise that the pilots back at Creech Air Force Base can see which vehicle Soleimani is riding in. They actually watched him get in—knowing he will never get out.
The last sound the general hears on earth is the split-second roar of a Hellfire rocket.
Two missiles slam into his car.
A third missile, then a fourth, obliterate the vehicle carrying his security team. Drone photos of the destruction show two flaming mounds of metal. Everyone inside is burned beyond recognition.
But one thing does remain of Qasem Soleimani. Even as his body is ripped to shreds by the direct hit from back-to-back Hellfires, commingling his parts with those of his confederates, the hand of the general is seen clearly. His silver and red ring, remaining on his finger, now lies with the severed hand on the shoulder of the road—illuminated by the flaming hulks of the two destroyed cars.
The rest of Qasem Soleimani is just mist.*
The hand and ring of Major General Haj Qassem Soleimani, the commander of the Quds Force, an elite unit of Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) killed when two US helicopters attacked two convoys carrying the Quds Force.
Iran is stunned. Sputtering to respond, the mullahs dither. They could be next. Although the Iranian protest is predictable, it is muted.
But not so with other demonstrations of disgust. All around the world, anger is being directed at the United States of America.
Even though a mass killer has himself been killed—President Trump and the United States are soon portrayed as the real villains.