General Qassem Soleimani instructed Iraqi militia leaders, including his top ally in the country, Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, to step up attacks on US targets in the country during a meeting in October at a villa across the Tigris River from the US embassy complex in Baghdad.

The attacks would deploy sophisticated new weapons provided by Iran, including Katyusha rockets and shoulder-fired missiles that could bring down helicopters, Reuters reported.

The strategy session took place as mass protests against Iran’s growing influence in Iraq were gaining momentum. Soleimani’s plan to attack US forces was designed to provoke a military response that would redirect that anger toward America, Reuters said.

Soleimani, 62, the leader of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards’ Quds Force, ordered a new militia group formed to carry out rocket attacks on Americans housed at Iraqi military bases. Muhandis’ Kataib Hezbollah force was to direct the operations, because the militia had the capability to use drones to scout targets for rocket attacks. Soleimani’s forces supplied its Iraqi militia allies with a drone Iran had developed that could elude radar systems last fall, according to Reuters.

By late December, attacks by Iranian-backed groups on bases hosting US forces in Iraq were increasing to include firing more than 30 rockets at an Iraqi military base near Kirkuk that killed a US civilian contractor. US airstrikes followed, which set off two days of violent protests at the US embassy in Baghdad.

On Thursday — the day before the attack that killed Soleimani and Muhandis — US Defense Secretary Mark Esper warned that the United States might have to take preemptive action to protect American lives from expected attacks by Iran-backed militias.