Iran says it will execute informant who led CIA to Soleimani

An Iranian citizen who provided information to the U.S. and Israeli intelligence services on the whereabouts of Iran's slain Revolutionary Guards commander Qassem Soleimani will be executed soon, Iran's judiciary said on Tuesday. On Jan. 3, a U.S. drone strike in Iraq killed Soleimani, leader of the Revolutionary Guards' Quds Force. Washington blamed Soleimani for masterminding attacks by Iran-aligned militias on U.S. forces in the region.

"Mahmoud Mousavi-Majd, one of the spies for CIA and Mossad, has been sentenced to death. He gave the whereabouts of martyr Soleimani to our enemies," judiciary spokesman Gholamhossein Esmaili said in a televised news conference. Officials have not said whether Mousavi-Majd's case is linked to Iran's announcement last summer that it had captured 17 spies working for the CIA, some of whom it said were sentenced to death.

Soleimani's killing led to a peak in the confrontation between Iran and the United States. Iran retaliated with a rocket attack on an Iraqi airbase where U.S. forces were stationed. Hours later, Iranian forces on high alert mistakenly shot down a Ukrainian passenger airliner taking off from Tehran. (Writing by Parisa Hafezi Editing by William Maclean and Peter Graff)