Ex-Ambassador to Iraq offers dire warning of who could be targeted as Iran seeks retribution for assassination

The former U.S. ambassador to Iraq warned of who could be targeted by Iran in retaliation for President Donald Trump's assassination of Iranian Gen. Qassim Suleimani during an interview with Foreign Policy magazine.

"The first thing I want to point out is that one of the people who was killed, along with Qassem Suleimani, was Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, who is the deputy commander—but for all intents and purposes the chief Iranian Quds Force operative lieutenant inside Iraq and the de facto leader of the Popular Mobilization Forces [an umbrella organization of fighters and Iran-backed militias formed to fight the Islamic State in Iraq]," Douglas Silliman explained.

"He was the best tactician when it came to implementing Iran’s strategic objectives in Iraq and Syria to create a ground line of communication, a supply chain from Iran to Iraq into Syria and into Lebanon to support the Assad regime and Lebanese Hezbollah," he noted.

"His death will be a very big loss for the pro-Iranian militias, and it further loosens the leadership and centralized control of the PMF [Popular Mobilization Forces]. So as I look at potential threats, I am as worried about individual militias, especially some of them had that have been Iranian-trained and -influenced, feeling that this now gives them complete individual freedom of action, because the Popular Mobilization Forces are not one unilateral force. They are a number of different groups. So that’s my first concern for my colleagues at the embassy in Baghdad and for U.S. military personnel and coalition military personnel on Iraqi bases around the country," he explained.

It is not just U.S. personnel who could be targeted, America's Sunni allies in the region could also face retaliation.

"I am concerned for American allies in the region, particularly Saudi Arabia and the UAE, because they are relatively easier targets for Iranian proxies to attack. So you might see attacks from Houthis in Yemen across the border into Saudi Arabia," he said. "You could potentially see attacks from Iranian-aligned PMF forces in Iraq into Saudi Arabia. And there are other people who could do mischief in the region. So I think that the Gulf states are fairly vulnerable."

Family members of U.S. personnel could also be targeted.

"There is also a significant American military presence in virtually all of the GCC [Gulf Cooperation Council] states. And in many of those locations, you have not only soldiers and sailors and marines and airmen, but you also have families and children of American service members and not to mention families and children of American diplomats, U.S. business people, NGO workers, and nonprofits. There are a lot of Americans who live in Saudi Arabia, in the UAE and Kuwait, and elsewhere in the region," Silliman explained. "So the number of targets that have an American label gets much larger and much softer as you look at the region. I would also say there is also a possibility of attacks on Israel from Lebanon or from western Syria, which would be a little bit more difficult to accomplish. Condemnation of Israel generally goes along with condemnation of the United States in Iran, and [the drone strike] may have been seen by some in Iran as a joint venture [between the United States and Israel]."

Read the full interview.