Iranian Major-General Qassem Soleimani,
the top commander of the elite Quds Force of the Revolutionary
Guards, helped Iran fight proxy wars across the Middle East by
inspiring militias on the battlefield and negotiating with
political leaders.
His death on Friday in a US air strike on his convoy at
Baghdad airport marked the end of a man who was a celebrity at
home and closely watched by the United States, Israel and
Tehran's regional rival Saudi Arabia.
The Pentagon said the strike was aimed at deterring future
Iranian attack plans.
Soleimani was responsible for clandestine overseas
operations and was often seen on battlefields guiding Iraqi
Shi'a groups in the war against Islamic State.
He was killed along with top Iraqi militia commander Abu
Mahdi al-Muhandis. Both men were seen as heroes in Iran's fight
against its enemies and state television heaped them with praise
shortly after their deaths were announced.
The television showed footage of Soleimani as a young
high-school graduate commanding a unit in Iran's war with Iraq
in the 1980s.
After that, he rose rapidly through the ranks of Iran's
Revolutionary Guards to become chief of the Quds Force, a post
in which he helped Iran form alliances in the Middle East as it
came under pressure from U.S. sanctions that have devastated the
Islamic Republic's economy.
The United States designated the Revolutionary Guards a
foreign terrorist organization in 2019, part of a campaign of
maximum pressure to force Iran to negotiate on its ballistic
missile program and nuclear policy.
Soleimani had a pointed reply: any negotiation with the U.S.
would be "complete surrender."
Soleimani's Quds Force shored up support for Syrian
President Bashir al-Assad when he looked close to defeat in the
civil war raging since 2011 and also helped militiamen defeat
Islamic State in Iraq.
Its successes have made Soleimani instrumental to the steady
spreading of Iran's clout in the Middle East, which the United
States and Tehran's regional foes Saudi Arabia and Israel have
struggled to keep in check.
Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei made Soleimani
head of the Quds Force in 1998, a position in which he kept a
low profile for years while he strengthened Iran’s ties with
Hezbollah in Lebanon, Assad's government, and Shi’a militia
groups in Iraq.
In the past few years, he has acquired a more public
standing, with fighters and commanders in Iraq and Syria posting
images on social media of him on the battlefield, his beard and
hair always impeccably trimmed.
"WE ARE CLOSE TO YOU"
Soleimani's growing authority within Iran's military
establishment was apparent in 2019 when Khamenei awarded him the
Order of Zolfiqar medal, Iran's highest military honour. It was
the first time any commander had received the medal since the
Islamic Republic was established in 1979.
In a statement after Soleimani's death, Khamenei said harsh
revenge awaited the "criminals" who killed him. His death,
though bitter, would double the motivation of the resistance
against the United States and Israel, the Iranian leader said.
"Soleimani is ... not a man working in an office. He goes to
the front to inspect the troops and see the fighting," a former
senior Iraqi official, who asked not to be identified, said in
an interview in 2014.
"His chain of command is only the Supreme Leader. He needs
money, gets money. Needs munitions, gets munitions. Needs
material, gets material," the former Iraqi official said.
Soleimani was also in charge of intelligence gathering and
covert military operations carried out by the Quds Force and in
2018 he publicly challenged U.S. President Donald Trump.
"I’m telling you Mr. Trump the gambler, I’m telling you,
know that we are close to you in that place you don’t think we
are," said Soleimani, seen wagging an admonishing finger in a
video clip distributed online.
"You will start the war but we will end it," he said, with a
checkered keffiya draped across the shoulders of his olive
uniform.
"GETS WHAT HE WANTS"
Softly-spoken, Soleimani came from humble beginnings, born
into an agricultural family in the town of Rabor in southeast
Iran on March 11, 1957.
At 13, he travelled to the town of Kerman and got a
construction job to help his father pay back loans, according to
a first person account from Soleimani posted by Defa Press, a
site focused on the history of Iran’s eight year war with Iraq.
When the revolution to oust the Shah began in 1978,
Soleimani was working for the municipal water department in
Kerman and organised demonstrations against the monarch.
He volunteered for the Revolutionary Guards and, after war
with Iraq broke out in 1980, quickly rose through the ranks and
went on to battle drug smugglers on the border with Afghanistan.
"Soleimani is a great listener. He does not impose himself.
But he always gets what he wants," said another Iraqi official,
adding that he can be intimidating.
At the height of the civil war between Sunni and Shi’a militants in Iraq in 2007, the U.S. military accused the Quds
Force of supplying improvised explosive devices to Shi’a
militants which led to the death of many American soldiers.
Soleimani played such a pivotal role in Iraq’s security
through various militia groups that General David Petraeus, the
overall head of U.S. forces in Iraq at the time, sent messages
to him through Iraqi officials, according to diplomatic cables
published by Wikileaks.
After a referendum on independence in the Kurdish north in
2017, Soleimani issued a warning to Kurdish leaders which led to
a withdrawal of fighters from contested areas and allowed
central government forces to reassert their control.
He was arguably even more influential in Syria. His visit to
Moscow in the summer of 2015 was the first step in planning for
a Russian military intervention that reshaped the Syrian war and
forged a new Iranian-Russian alliance in support of Assad.
His activities had made him a repeated target of the U.S.
Treasury: Soleimani was sanctioned by the United States for the
Quds Force's support for Lebanon's Hezbollah and other armed
groups, for his role in Syria’s crackdown against protesters and
his alleged involvement in a plot to assassinate the Saudi
ambassador to the United States.
Soleimani’s success in advancing Iran’s agenda had also put
him in the crosshairs of regional foes Saudi Arabia and Israel.
Top Saudi intelligence officials looked into the possibility
of assassinating Soleimani in 2017, according to a report in the
New York Times in 2018. A Saudi government spokesman declined to
comment, the Times reported, but Israeli military officials
publicly discussed the possibility of targeting him.