Was President Trump justified in ordering the killing?
“TRULY evil”, Qassem Soleimani was the architect of Iran’s military operations across the Middle East.
He influenced a web of militant groups and terrorists, from Hezbollah to Hamas, to extend Iranian power and was “more important” than the president back in Tehran.
He was even considered an architect of Syrian President Bashar al Assad’s civil war against rebels opposing his regime.
Dina Esfandiary, a fellow at the Century Foundation think-tank, said: “He was more important than the president, spoke to all factions in Iran, had a direct line to the supreme leader and was in charge of Iran’s regional policy.
“It doesn’t get more important and influential than that.”
Once a labourer, Soleimani organised demonstrations against the Shah in 1979 and after his overthrow joined Iran’s new Revolutionary
Guard when they were first set up.
He made his name in the war with Iraq in the 1980s by organising raids behind enemy lines.
By 1998 he was commander of the Quds Forces, responsible for the overseas military operations of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard corps.
Covert operations included aiding groups fighting against Iraq’s Saddam Hussein, backing Lebanon’s Hezbollah group during the 33-day war with Israel in 2006 and supporting Hamas in Palestine.
Former CIA officer John
Maguire said in 2013 that Soleimani was “the single most powerful operative in the Middle East”.
After the US invasion of Iraq he taught militants how to use deadly roadside bombs against American troops.
In a message to the United States then commander in
Iraq David Petraeus, he bragged: “You should know that I, Qassem Suleimani, control the policy for Iran with respect to Iraq, Lebanon, Gaza, and Afghanistan.”
General Petraeus called Soleimani a “truly evil figure”.