PUK counter-terrorism units linked with assassination of Qasim Soleimani: Report

“When the target stepped off the airplane, Kurdish [PUK] CTG operators posing as baggage handlers were also present to positively identify him,” the report said.
Iranian commander Qassim Soleimani and Iraqi militia leader Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis (left) and the flag of the PUK CTG forces (right). (Photo: Archive)
Iranian commander Qassim Soleimani and Iraqi militia leader Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis (left) and the flag of the PUK CTG forces (right). (Photo: Archive)

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – Counter-terrorism units affiliated with the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) were involved in the US assassination of top Iranian commander Qasim Soleimani in the first days of 2020 in Baghdad, according to a new piece of investigative journalism.

A US drone in the early hours of Jan. 3, 2020, struck a convoy near Baghdad International Airport, killing Soleimani, long-time head of the Quds Force, the paramilitary arm of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, along with Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, deputy head of the Hashd al-Shaabi (or Popular Mobilization Forces, the umbrella movement of Iran-backed militias in Iraq), and founder of the Kataib Hizbollah militia.

Read More: US strike kills Qasim Soleimani and Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis

In the article, titled “'Conspiracy is hard': Inside the Trump administration's secret plan to kill Qassem Soleimani,” authors Jack Murphy and Zach Dorfman write about details of the operation, including the “intimate” involvement of the PUK's elite "Counter-terrorism Group (CTG) in the assassination.

The article “is based on interviews with 15 current and former US officials,” according to its authors.

It explains that one contribution of the CTG to the mission was helping American special forces to identify the two targets  Soleimani and Mohandis – after they stepped out their plane, which had carried them from Damascus to the Iraqi capital.

“As the plane taxied off the runway, toward the closed-off portion of the airfield, one of the Kurdish operatives [PUK CTG] disguised as ground crew guided the aircraft to a halt on the tarmac,” according to the article, saying the PUK forces assisted the American snipers in identifying both Soleimani and Muhandis.

“When the target stepped off the airplane, Kurdish CTG operators posing as baggage handlers were also present to positively identify him,” the report said.

After the commanders exited the airport, it continued, a team of American snipers followed them as three US drones were also flying over the convoy before being hit at the designated “kill zone,” outside the airport compound.

Editing by John J. Catherine