Former US President Donald Trump predicted that Israel would play a more active role in the assassination of Iranian leader Kasim Soleimani in January 2020, according to a report published on Wednesday.
The source, who was a senior official in the Trump administration, said that then Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was “ready to fight Iran until the last American soldier”, during the aftermath of the killing of the “Jerusalem Corps” commander Kasim Soleimani.
In an interview with the journalist Barak Rafid in July, Trump said he would not go into details, but "he has great hope in the relationship between Israel and this event."
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“People will hear about it in due course,” he added.
Trump spoke to Rafid for the new correspondent's book in Hebrew, “Salam Trump”, on the normalization deals between Israel and the Arab States, which were brokered with the help of the Trump Administration.
According to the reports, Israel provided the US Army with information during the operation, including tracing Soleimani's phone and handing over other key intelligence details to the Americans.
However, an Israeli defence official, Akios, said that Israel had proposed a more active role for its forces in the assassination. Instead, the United States insisted on carrying out the drone strike.
قائد فيلق القدس التابع للحرس الثوري الإيراني، قاسم سليماني، وسط، يشارك في اجتماع مع المرشد الأعلى الإيراني آية الله علي خامنئي وقادة الحرس الثوري الإيراني في طهران، إيران، 18 سبتمبر، 2016. (Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader via AP)But recent comments have shown that Trump is criticizing the former Prime Minister, telling Rafid that he has not helped Netanyahu more than he did, and that he therefore considered it a betrayal when Netanyahu congratulated Joe B on his election victory, even as Trump falsely claimed that the election had been stolen.