Right.
Abu Mahdi AlMuhandes of PMU led the “protesters”. They could not overcome the inner security shield the Marines defended. That was on Wednesday, no? Wednesday night, V-22 Ospreys landed 100 heavily armed and ordnance Marines.
Thursday, the crowds of “protesters” came back, but then all left. AlMuhandes could see it was going to be a LOT harder to succeed with all the reinforcements there.
I think they left due to orders from Soleimani, who told AlMuhandes, “Stop operations for now, I’ll come out tonight and take complete control.”
He didn’t realize we were listening.
It couldn’t have been many hours, local time, from the last protestor leaving the Embassy area early Thursday afternoon and Qassem getting on his “Charmed” flight to Baghdad.
They was killed 5 minutes after they landed and AlMuhandes rolled up to the deck stairs in his SUVs.
Question to you... What do you think Soleimani was up to? What were his intentions, beside trying to fix a failed Embassy takeover, that day?
You have it right. Initial reports had him flying from Lebanon. Apparently he was flying from Damascus.
My initial thought was that Soleimani was in Lebanon planning the planned Hezbollah strike on Israel concurrent with a similar strike on an American target in Iraq.
It now seems plausible that the way to Baghdad is through Syria. Alleged intercepted telephone call aside, the arrogance of a foreign military commander coming to Iraq at all indicates he had no fear. That arrogance got him killed.
I would think that the Embassy plan having been thwarted, it was necessary to gather the various commanders in Iraq and develop a whole new campaign.
I have no idea of what he was going to do after the attack failed. Certainly he knew taking the embassy was no longer an option. If I had to guess, he was working on some other mode of attack on the embassy, either rocket or VBIED.
Word is that he also planned the Benghazi attack as a kidnapping mission, but changed to an assassination after the kidnapping plan was compromised.
They hesitated. He came to bolster their courage. He chose...poorly.
What do you bet that the Muhandes telephone was compromised and he gave Soleimani away?