Former US president Donald Trump on Sunday told Maria Bartiromo’s Sunday Morning Futures on FOX News that Israel was originally supposed to be directly part of the operation to assassinate Iran Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Force Chief Qasem Soleimani in January 2020 but pulled out at the last second.
Trump previously made similar comments in mid-October 2023 as part of an extended criticism of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Israel's security apparatus shortly after Israel failed to prevent Hamas's invasion of southern Israel.
In the end, it was the US alone that assassinated Soleimani using hellfire missiles from drones at Baghdad airport.
Trump's comments say differently
But according to Trump, until two days before the operation, Israel was due to take direct part in the assassination itself but then got "cold feet," likely wanting to avoid direct blowback from Tehran.
When Trump's previous comments were made, it was somewhat lost in the maelstrom of news following Hamas's invasion, and no one confirmed Trump's account, with some US officials even seeming to suggest the account was not accurate.
But at press time, multiple Israeli officials with knowledge of the operation declined to address Trump's comments.
NBC News and Yahoo News had published back in 2020 detailed pieces about Israel’s exact role at a time when all official Israeli echelons had been mum on the issue, and the censor had actively prevented Israeli journalists, including the Jerusalem Post, from providing details for nearly two years – until former IDF intelligence chief Maj. Gen. (res.) Tamir Hayman broke the news of greater Israeli ancillary involvement in December 2021.
In an interview with the Post in August 2022, Hayman said, “I stand by what I announced. We gave intelligence that incriminated and proved the responsibility of Soleimani for killing Americans. The Americans’ view of him was radically altered after they saw the intelligence from us and the level of danger he [continued to] present to Americans.”
He continued, “The Americans needed Soleimani during the fight against ISIS [Y.B. - which continued until 2017-2018]. But they did not forgive him for the attacks he had carried out against Americans. Still, they understood he was necessary and effective against ISIS.”
“There needed to be intelligence information to change things after ISIS. He [Soleimani] rechannelled his violence toward Americans and [created new] national security dangers for America. We gave this [intelligence information] to them. This was the trigger that changed their concept of who is Soleimani. It took a period of months, but eventually they understood,” said Heyman.
Many analysts have noted that Iran had and has been constantly at work to hit Israelis with terror attacks.
One of the most successful operations against Iran
Reflecting on the big-picture impact of eliminating Soleimani, Hayman said, “They accomplished one of the most successful operations against Iran in the region even to this day. The assassination of Soleimani was a point in which there was a paradigm shift.”
“His successors have not been as effective. He was a truly unique figure. It was like the architect of a building disappearing, where the workers keep building. At the beginning, it looks like the same building, but later the building loses aspects of its shape because no one tells them when to build the roof and the porches.”
Heyman broke the news of Israeli intelligence involvement as part of an interview with the Malam magazine, which is published by the Israeli Intelligence Heritage and Commemoration Center.
“Soleimani’s assassination is an achievement since our main enemy, in my eyes, are the Iranians,” Heyman told Malam, discussing two major assassination operations where Israel had a role (with Soleimani referring to an intelligence role.)
Heyman declined to address the specifics of Israel’s intelligence role from NBC and Yahoo reports regarding allegedly tracking his numerous cell phones and providing this tracking information to the US.