SULAIMANI (ESTA) — Iraq’s Hashid al-Shaabi held a candle-lit vigil on Sunday at Baghdad airport to honor their deputy leader and a top Iranian commander killed in a U.S. drone strike in 2020.
Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis and Qasem Soleimani were killed in a U.S. drone strike near Baghdad international airport on January 3, 2020.
Soleimani headed an elite overseas unit of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, while Muhandis commanded Hashid al-Shaabi paramilitary network in Iraq.
The United States had accused Soleimani of masterminding attacks by Iranian-aligned militias on U.S. forces in the region.
The strike, ordered by former U.S. president Donald Trump, hit a car in which Soleimani and Muhandis were traveling on the edge of the airport.
The burnout shell of the vehicle remained displayed there.
Hundreds of Hashid al-Shaabi supporters, including men and women who brought children, gathered at the site on Sunday evening to pay tribute to the slain men, according to AFP.
They lit candles that they left by the vehicle as they held pictures of Soleimani and Muhandis and Hashid al-Shaabi flags.
On Saturday, thousands of Hashid supporters filled a Baghdad square to honor the two commanders’ killing.
Iraqi media cited intelligence sources as saying on Saturday that pro-Iranian militias planned to attack the U.S. embassy in Baghdad in retaliation for the drone strike that killed Soleimani and Muhandis.
Al-Arabiya channel reported that a security document of the Iraqi intelligence revealed the “existence of a plot by pro-Iranian militias to target the U.S. embassy with missiles” in retaliation of the assassination of Soleimani and al-Muhandis.
“The document recommended intensifying security efforts in Baghdad and conducting thorough searches in the Palestine Street area, where armed militias loyal to Iran are present,” Al-Arabia said.
Days after the U.S. drone strike, Iran retaliated with a rocket attack on an Iraqi air base where U.S. forces were stationed, and Iranian forces on high alert mistakenly shot down a Ukrainian passenger airliner taking off from Tehran.
Since then, dozens of rockets and roadside bombs have targeted U.S. security, military and diplomatic sites in Iraq.
