US President Donald Trump personally approved the airstrike in the early hours of Friday morning as Gen Soleimani was driven from Baghdad after flying in from Syria. The 62-year-old leader of the feared Quds Force - a unit in Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps.
Two Toyota SUVs drove onto the tarmac and Gen Soleimani was met off his plane by Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the deputy commander of Iranian-backed militia forces operating in Iraq.
The two men and their most senior aides got into one car while their bodyguards went in the other.
But as the cars drove out of the airport on a cargo bay access road they were each hit by a 230mph laser-guided Hellfire missiles fired from a near-silent US MQ-9 Reaper drone being operated by a two-man crew at the US Air Force base at Creech in Nevada, 7,000 miles away.
Qassem Soleimani was obliterated when laser-guided Hellfire missiles slammed into his SUV at 230mph.
Iran’s state media said 10 men were killed in the attack including IRGC Brigadier General Hussein Jafari Nia, Major-General Hadi Taremi, Colonel of the Guards Shahroud Mozaffari Nia and Captain Waheed Zamanian. They died alongside four Iraqi militia leaders and al-Muhandis.
Local militia commander Abu Muntather al-Hussaini said two missiles hit the car carrying Gen Soleimani and 66-year-old al-Muhandis. The second car was struck by a single missile.
The unmanned “hunter-killer” drone had earlier taken off from the US Central Command headquarters in Qatar.
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