New York, January 13 (RHC)-- Israeli intelligence played a role in the assassination of Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani on January 3rd, according to a report by NBC News.  The news agency said, citing unnamed sources, that Israel's intelligence apparatus helped the U.S. stage the operation that led to the assassination of Qassem Soleimani and the Deputy Head of Iraq's Popular Mobilization Forces Abu Mahdi Al-Mohandes.

According to the NBC sources, Israeli intelligence provided the U.S. military command with key details of his movements, which later proved critical in the assassination of Soleimani in Baghdad.  The report said one Israeli informant at the Damascus International Airport confirmed that Soleimani had been on a nightime flight from the Syrian capital to Baghdad, which was used to tip off the CIA.

The New York Times, in turn, reported that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke to U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo ahead of Soleimani’s killing, and that the Jewish state likely became Washington’s only ally which was in the know about the issue.   

In October, the Iranian news agency Tasnim cited the IRGC’s head of intelligence Hossein Taeb as saying that Israel and the West had collaborated to assassinate Soleimani in order to “trigger a religious war inside Iran.”                                                             

“Frustrated by their failure to upset security in Iran or to harm the IRGC military bases, the enemies had hatched an extensive plot to hit General Soleimani in his home province of Kerman,” Taeb claimed at the time.

Meanwhile, The Wall Street Journal reports that Trump told associates after Soleimani’s killing that he had been facing pressure to deal with Soleimani from Republican senators that he viewed as important supporters in his upcoming impeachment trial in the Senate.