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Iraq Ex-PM Reveals Details of Phone Call with Trump before Soleimani’s Assassination

Former Prime Minister of Iraq Adil Abdul-Mahdi, Asharq Al-Awsat
Former Prime Minister of Iraq Adil Abdul-Mahdi, Asharq Al-Awsat
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Iraq Ex-PM Reveals Details of Phone Call with Trump before Soleimani’s Assassination

Former Prime Minister of Iraq Adil Abdul-Mahdi, Asharq Al-Awsat
Former Prime Minister of Iraq Adil Abdul-Mahdi, Asharq Al-Awsat

Iraq’s former Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi has revealed the details of a phone call conversation he had with US President Donald Trump on New Year’s Eve (2020) regarding the attack on the US embassy in Baghdad during the last two days of 2019.

“Trump called me last New Year's Eve at around nine o'clock Baghdad time, and thanked us for ending the storming of the American embassy and asked me whether the attackers were Iraqis or Iranians, so I told him they were Iraqis who objected to the US air strikes on armed factions on the border with Syria,” Abdul-Mahdi said in a documentary feature on the assassination of the commander of Iran’s Quds Force, General Qasem Soleimani and Popular Mobilization Forces Deputy Chief Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis.

On January 3, 2020, a US drone strike targeted a convoy transporting Soleimani and al-Muhandis at the Baghdad International Airport.

“Americans do not know the Iranians well, but the Iraqis are the ones who know them well,” Abdul-Mahdi added, quoting Trump.

The ex-prime minister added that he told the US leader that neither the Iranians nor the US want a war, and proposed either holding direct negotiations with Iran or establishing tacit agreements, with the latter being a popular approach since 2003.

Subsequently, Trump admitted to Abdul-Mahdi that Iraq is a good negotiator and that the US is prepared for anything Baghdad can achieve in this regard.

“There was approval and an official invitation for Soleimani to come to Iraq for discussions,” Abdul-Mahdi said.

Noting that Soleimani’s assassination could not have been decided and planned within a day or two, Abdul-Mahdi was skeptic towards whether Trump held sincere intentions for negotiating with Iran, or that it was all a play acted out less than 48 hours before launching the strike on the airport.

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Israeli Strikes Kill Dozens in Gaza after Blinken Ends Visit without Truce Breakthrough

Palestinian children walk in a graveyard, in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, 21 August 2024. (EPA)
Palestinian children walk in a graveyard, in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, 21 August 2024. (EPA)
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Israeli Strikes Kill Dozens in Gaza after Blinken Ends Visit without Truce Breakthrough

Palestinian children walk in a graveyard, in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, 21 August 2024. (EPA)
Palestinian children walk in a graveyard, in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, 21 August 2024. (EPA)

Israeli airstrikes across Gaza killed at least 50 Palestinians in the past 24 hours, Palestinian health officials said on Wednesday, after US Secretary of State Antony Blinken ended his latest visit to the region with a truce deal still elusive.

As last-ditch diplomacy continued to halt the 10-month-old war between Israel and Hamas, the Israeli military said jets hit around 30 targets throughout the Gaza Strip including tunnels, launch sites and an observation post.

It said troops killed dozens of armed fighters and seized weapons including explosives, grenades and automatic rifles.

Later in the day, the Israeli military struck a school and a nearby house in Gaza City, killing at least three people and wounding 15, the territory's Civil Emergency Service said.

The military said in a statement that it had hit Hamas fighters operating at a command center located inside a compound that had previously served as a school.

It accused Hamas of continuing to operate from within civilian facilities and areas, an allegation Gaza's dominant armed group denies.

In the town of Bani Suhaila near Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, an Israeli airstrike killed seven Palestinians at a tent encampment for displaced people, medics said.

The military issued new evacuation orders in the heavily overcrowded area of Deir Al-Balah, in central Gaza, where hundreds of thousands of Palestinians displaced by the fighting have sought shelter.

The orders, which the military said were needed to clear civilians from what had become "a dangerous combat zone", were soon followed by tank fire with at least one person killed and several wounded by machine gun fire, medics and residents said.

The conflict churned on as Blinken wound up his ninth troubleshooting visit to the Middle East since the Gaza war erupted last October with still no sign that deep differences between the sides over how to end the war could be reconciled.

Blinken's talks with leaders of ceasefire mediators Egypt and Qatar, as well as in Israel, focused on the fate of tiny, crowded Gaza, where Israel's military campaign has killed more than 40,000 people since October according to Palestinian health authorities, and of the remaining hostages being held there.

The war began on Oct. 7 last year when Hamas gunmen stormed into Israeli communities and military bases, killing around 1,200 people and abducting about 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.

For displaced people left exposed in Deir Al-Balah, the lack of progress towards a ceasefire compounded the misery as they searched for space away from the fighting.

"Where will we go? Where will we go?" said Aburakan, 55, a displaced person from Gaza City in the territory's north who has had to change refuge five times since October.

"We feel they are closing in. I live a few hundred meters from the threatened areas, and I have been searching since the early morning in vain for a space in western Deir Al-Balah, Khan Younis, or Nuseirat," he told Reuters via a chat app.

"Unfortunately, we may die before we see an end to this war. All ceasefire talk is a lie."

Palestinian and United Nations officials say most of the 2.3 million population have become internally displaced by Israel's ongoing ground operations and bombardment that have also flattened swathes of built-up areas across the enclave.