[FoxNews] The Pentagon launched an airstrike Thursday night that killed a powerful Iranian military leader, Gen. Qassim Soleimanihead of the Quds Force, at Baghdad's international airport.The Defense Department said it conducted the attack at President Donald Trump's direction as a "defensive action" against Soleimani, who it said was planning further attacks on American diplomats and service members.
Soleimani is an extremely influential figure inside Iran, heading Iran's elite Quds Force, part of the country's hard-line paramilitary Revolutionary Guard Corps.
"General Soleimani was actively developing plans to attack American diplomats and service members in Iraq and throughout the region," the Defense Department said in a statement Thursday night. "General Soleimani and his Quds Force were responsible for the deaths of hundreds of American and coalition service members and the wounding of thousands more."
The attack represented a seismic event in the Middle East and sparked immediate fears of a wider confrontation between the U.S. and Iran.
"Make no mistake - this is bigger than taking out Osama Bin Laden," tweeted Ranj Alaaldin, a visiting fellow at the Brookings Doha Center and director of a Carnegie Corporation project on proxy warfare in the Middle East.