Soleimani became an icon in Iran by targeting U.S.

TEHRAN, Iran — For Iranians whose icons since the Islamic Revolution have been stern-faced clergy, Gen. Qassem Soleimani was a popular figure of national resilience in the face of decades of U.S. pressure.

For the U.S. and Israel, he was a shadowy figure in command of Iran’s proxy forces, responsible for fighters in Syria backing President Bashar Assad and for the deaths of American troops in Iraq.

Gen. Soleimani survived the horror of Iran’s long war in the 1980s with Iraq to take control of the Revolutionary Guard’s elite Quds Force, responsible for the Islamic Republic’s campaigns abroad.

Relatively unknown until the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, Gen. Soleimani’s popularity and mystique grew after American officials called for his killing. A decade and a half later, Gen. Soleimani had become Iran’s most recognizable commander, ignoring calls to enter politics but growing as powerful, if not more, than its civilian leadership.

“The warfront is mankind’s lost paradise,” Gen.

Soleimani said in a 2009 interview. “One type of paradise that is portrayed for mankind is streams, beautiful nymphs and greeneries. But there is another kind of paradise . ... The warfront was the lost paradise of the human beings, indeed.”

Little is known about his childhood, though Iranian accounts suggest Gen. Soleimani’s father was a peasant who received some land under the Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the monarch who was toppled in the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

After Iran’s Islamic Revolution, Gen. Soleimani joined the Revolutionary Guard. He deployed to Iran’s northwest with forces that put down Kurdish unrest.

Amid the carnage, Gen. Soleimani became known for his opposition to “meaningless deaths” on the battlefield. He wept with fervor when exhorting his men into combat, embracing each individually.

For years after the IraqIran war, Gen. Soleimani disappeared from public view, something analysts attribute to his wartime disagreements with Hashemi Rafsanjani, who served as Iran’s president from 1989 to 1997.

Tauseef Mustafa/AFP via Getty Images Protesters shout slogans against the United States and Israel as they hold posters with the image of top Iranian commander Qassem Soleimani and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani on Friday in Magam, Kashmir.