The United States killed Iranian Major-General Qassem Soleimani, head of the elite Quds Force and spearhead of Iran's spreading military influence in the Middle East, on Friday in an air strike at Baghdad airport, the Pentagon and Iran said.
Top Iraqi militia commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, an adviser to Soleimani, was also killed in the attack, a militia spokesman said.
The high-profile assassinations are likely to be a massive blow to Iran, which has been locked in a long conflict with the United States that escalated sharply last week with an attack on the US embassy in Iraq by pro-Iranian militiamen following