Revealed: David Miliband called off SAS strike on Iranian General Qassim Soleimani in 2007

The SAS planned to assassinate Iranian military chief Qassim Soleimani during the Iraq War but were stopped by a personal intervention from Labour foreign secretary David Miliband.

The Daily Telegraph has learnt that British special forces were ready to kill Soleimani in 2007 when he was identified as the man running the campaign against UK troops in the southern port city of Basra.

The SAS had him in their “crosshairs”, sources said, but Mr Miliband called off the operation, meaning Soleimani survived until he was killed on Friday morning in a US drone strike.

It emerged that Boris Johnson was given no advance warning of Friday’s US rocket attack in Baghdad despite Britain having hundreds of…