Iranian General killed in Iraq: Who was Qasem Soleimani?
Iranian Major General Qasem Soleimani, who died in a US Air Force strike in Baghdad, is considered a living legend. The Iranians practically idolize him, the enemies are afraid and hate him. Israel and the US have repeatedly tried to kill him. Moreover, very little is known about the general. We tried to collect information about him.
Born March 11, 1957, Soleimani grew up near a historic Iranian town of Rabor. At the age of thirteen, for the sake of paying an agricultural loan, his father went with his relative to find job in Kerman (Iran), where he worked at the construction site of a school on the outskirts of the city. In 1979, he joined the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), where he attended 45-day courses for young fighters.
In 1998, he took command of the special unit of the Quds organization, which is responsible for military and undercover intelligence, as well as for sabotage activities outside of Iran and reports directly to the supreme leader of the republic, Ali Khamenei.
In 2007, Soleimani was included in the UN sanctions list of Iranian military and political figures who are banned from leaving the country.
When Saddam Hussein invaded Iran on September 22, 1980, Soleimani was a lieutenant in the ranks of the IRGC. However, with the outbreak of hostilities, he quickly became famous, thanks in large part to bold reconnaissance operations behind enemy lines. He was given command of the 41st Tarallah Infantry Division aged 30.
He is considered an outstanding strategist and organizer of special operations, as well as the creator of a wide intelligence network in the Middle East, relying on.
He is known as a shrewd and frighteningly clever strategist, the organizer of sabotage and reconnaissance operations, who created a wide intelligence network based on Shiite communities throughout the region. As John Maguire, a former CIA official in Iraq, told The New Yorker magazine, Soleimani is by far the most powerful figure in the Middle East and no one has heard of him.
In Iran, his influence was great even before the Syrian conflict turned him into a political ‘superstar.’ The general enjoys the trust of Iran’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei. Khamenei calls him a living martyr for his contribution. John Maguire told The New Yorker reporters that the Iranian general, despite the lack of a formal education, is well-read and erudite, more intelligent than his entourage, and has a restrained charm.
In 2018, Israeli media hastened to report his death during Israeli air strikes in the Damascus area, but the information was denied.
In October last year, Iranian intelligence reported the failure of an assassination attempt on Soleimani. According to the head of the intelligence department of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, a group of terrorists entered Iran last winter. They wanted to buy a house next to a mosque built by the late father of General in Kerman in southeast Iran.
Then dig a canal under the mosque and lay 350 to 500 kg of explosives there, which they were supposed to blow up when the general came to the mosque. They had to implement the plan at the end of summer, when Soleimani came to this mosque for the mourning ceremony of Ashura and Tasua. However, thanks to the IRGC intelligence, they were all captured before these ceremonies.
Former Iranian ambassador to Jordan in 2017 said that Washington had been weaving intrigues for 14 years to kill the General. According to him, the US has been plotting General’s murder since 2003.
Source: News AM
