TEHRAN -- The resistance axis has killed two American and Israeli commanders involved in the U.S. assassination of top anti-terror commanders, General Qassem Soleimani and Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, a report said Tuesday. The Cradle, which describes itself as a journalist-driven publication covering West Asia, cited a senior security source as saying that the resistance axis killed two high-ranking American and Israeli commanders in an operation in Erbil in northern Iraq. It identified the slain men as Lt. Col. James C. Willis, 55, of Albuquerque and of the Red Horse Unit, an American commander, and Col. Sharon Asman, 42, of the Nahal Brigade, a Zionist commander.

Both the U.S. and the occupying regime of Israel had claimed that the commanders were killed in separate accidents days apart.
The Pentagon had on June 27 claimed that Willis died in a non-combat incident at Qatar’s Al-Udeid base, without providing further details.
The Stars and Stripes, an American military newspaper, described him as “commander of the 210th Red Horse Squadron,” a 130-member unit that “provides civil engineering with rapid response capabilities to conduct operations in remote, high threat environments.”
According to Israeli media, Asman died on July 1 “after collapsing during fitness training at a military base in central Israel.” He had fought in Lebanon and Gaza among other places in his career spanning 25 years.
However, the Cradle quoted the security source as saying that both Willis and Asman were killed in Erbil during an operation against those involved in the assassinations of Gen. Soleimani and Muhandis.
There have been at least two separate attacks this year on the Israeli spy agency Mossad targets in Iraq.
The first incident came in mid-April, after the Zionist regime’s sabotage attack on Iran’s Natanz nuclear facility, strikes on maritime vessels belonging to the two sides in regional waters, and the assassination of Iran’s top nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh last November.
The Cradle source did not elaborate on the timing of the attacks that killed Willis and Asman.
“Iran has changed the equation of dealing with the (Israeli) regime,” the source was quoted as saying, referring to Iran’s new assertive stance toward the Israeli regime.