‘We’ll win war, Trump’–
US AIRSTRIKE THAT KILLED OFFICER ‘WAS TO DETER FUTURE IRANIAN ATTACK PLANS’
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 yesterday in a US airstrike on his convoy at Baghdad airport marked the end of a man who was a celebrity at home and closely watched by the US, 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’ite groups in the war against Islamic State. He was killed along with top Iraqi militia commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis. Both were seen as heroes in Iran’s fight against its enemies.
State television showed Soleimani as a young high school graduate commanding a unit in Iran’s war with Iraq in the 1980s. 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 US sanctions.
The US designated the Revolutionary
Guards a foreign terrorist organisation last year in a campaign to force Iran to negotiate on its ballistic missile programme and nuclear policy. Soleimani’s reply was pointed: any negotiation with the US 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. He also helped militiamen defeat Islamic State in Iraq. Its successes have made Soleimani instrumental to the spread of Iran’s clout in the Middle East.
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’ite militia groups in Iraq. In the past few years, he has acquired a more public standing.
Soleimani’s growing authority within Iran’s military establishment was apparent last year 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. After Soleimani’s death, Khamenei said harsh revenge awaited the “criminals” who killed him.
“Soleimani ... goes to the front to see the fighting,” a former senior Iraqi official, who asked not to be identified, said in 2014. “His chain of command is only the Supreme Leader.”
Soleimani was also in charge of intelligence gathering and covert military operations carried out by Quds Force and in 2018, he challenged US 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 in a video online. “You will start the war but we will end it.”
Soleimani was born into an agricultural family on 11 March, 1957. When the revolution to oust the Shah began in 1978, he volunteered for the
Revolutionary Guards and, after war with Iraq broke out in 1980, rose fast through the ranks.
At the height of the civil war between Sunni and Shi’ite militants in Iraq in 2007, the US accused the Quds Force of supplying improvised explosive devices to Shi’ite militants which killed many US soldiers. Soleimani played such a pivotal role in Iraq’s security through militia groups that head of US forces in Iraq General David Petraeus 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 in contested areas. He was even more influential in Syria. His visit to Moscow in 2015 was the first step in planning for a Russian military intervention that reshaped the Syrian war and forged an Iranian-Russian alliance in support of Assad.
Soleimani was sanctioned by the US and was also in the crosshairs of Saudi Arabia and Israel. Top Saudi intelligence officials looked into the possibility of assassinating him in 2017, according to the New York Times.
A Saudi government spokesperson declined to comment, the Times reported, but Israeli officials publicly discussed targeting him. – Reuters
Victims ‘huge symbols of victory against IS terrorists’.
Iraq’s prime minister yesterday condemned the US killing of Iranian Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani and Iraqi militia commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis and said it would “light the fuse” of war.
The United States killed Soleimani, head of the elite Quds Force and architect of Iran’s spreading military influence in the Middle East, in a strike at Baghdad airport.
Muhandis, an advisor Soleimani, was also killed.
“The assassination of an Iraqi military commander who holds an official position is considered aggression on Iraq ... and the liquidation of leading Iraqi figures, or those from a brotherly country on Iraqi soil, is a massive breach of sovereignty,” Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi said.
Abdul Mahdi, whose government has the backing of Iran, said in a statement the US airstrike was “a dangerous escalation that will light the fuse of a destructive war in Iraq, the region, and the world.”
The prime minister resigned in November after antigovernment protests, but remains in office in a caretaker capacity. At least 450 people have been killed in the unrest, some which was driven by anger at Iranian influence in the country.
The prime minister said the to
US strike violated terms of the US military presence in Iraq, adding that US troops were exclusively in Iraq to train Iraqi security forces and fight Islamic State within the framework of a global coalition.
Abdul Mahdi called on parliament to convene an extraordinary session to “take legislative steps and necessary provisions to safeguard Iraq’s dignity, security and sovereignty”.
He did not specify what those provisions would entail, but some officials and parliamentarians have called for steps to expel US troops from Iraq. Abdul Mahdi, whose government has support from Iran’s and Tehran-backed Iraqi allies, described Soleimani and Muhandis as “huge symbols of the victory against Islamic State terrorists.” Iraq’s Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF), a grouping of mostly Iran-backed Shi’ite Muslim militias led by Muhandis, helped security forces retake a third of Iraq from Islamic State. The grouping’s troops were later incorporated into Iraq’s official armed forces.
Thousands of Iraqis have taken to the streets since 1 October to condemn, among other things, militias and their Iranian patrons that support Abdul Mahdi’s government.
The protesters have also demanded an overhaul of a political system they see as corrupt and designed to keep most Iraqis in poverty.
Assassinations a massive breach of sovereignty