Qasem Soleimani is the commander of the Qods Force, a division of the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary
Guard Corps, which conducts special operations outside Iran.
According to Western sources, although he has maintained a low profile, Soleimani has
been very influential in building up the capacity of Hezbollah, shaping the post-war political
landscape in Iraq, and turning around the Syrian civil war—driving opposition forces
from strategic points.
He is listed by the United States government as a "terrorist", and has been described as
"both hated and admired" by his adversaries.
Early life and education Soleimani was born 11 March 1957 in the village
Rabor in the province of Kerman, and his father was a peasant.
He has a high school education.
In his early years, he worked as a contractor for the Kerman Water organization.
When not at work, he spent his time lifting weights in local gyms and attending the sermons
of a traveling preacher by the name of Hojjat Kamyab - a protege of Ayatollah Khomeini.
Career and activities Soleimani joined the Revolutionary Guard in
1979 following the fall of the Shah of Iran to the Ayatollah Khomeini.
Reportedly, his training was minimal, but he advanced rapidly.
Early in his career as a guardsman, he was stationed in northwestern Iran and helped
crush a Kurdish uprising.
On 22 September 1980, when Saddam Hussein invaded Iran, Soleimani was a lieutenant in
the ranks of the IRGC.
During the war, from 1980 to 1988, he was stationed at the south front, commanding the
Forty-First Tharallah Division while still in his 20s.
He is considered a hero of the war by some war veterans.
After the war, during the 1990s, he was an IRGC commander in Kerman.
In this border region of Afghanistan where opium trade travels to Turkey and onto Europe,
Soleimani's military experience helped him earn a reputation as a successful fighter
against drug trafficking.
During the 1999 student revolt in Tehran, Soleiman was one of 24 IRGC officers who signed
a letter to President Mohammad Khatami.
The letter stated that "Our patience has run out," and said that if Khatami did not crush
the student rebellion the military would, and might also launch a coup against Khatami.
Command of Quds Force The exact date of his appointment as commander
of the IRGC Special Forces - the Quds Force is not clear, but Ali Alfoneh cites it as
between 10 September 1997 and 21 March 1998.
He was considered one of the possible successors to the post of commander of the IRGC, when
General Yahya Rahim Safavi left this post in 2007.
In 2008, he led a group of Iranian investigators looking into the death of Imad Mughniyah.
Suleimani helped arrange a ceasefire between the Iraqi Army and Mahdi Army in March 2008.
Following the Twin Tower attacks of September 11, 2001, Ryan Crocker, a senior State Department
official in the United States, flew to Geneva to meet with Iranian diplomats who were under
the direction of Soleimani with the purpose of collaborating to destroy the Taliban, which
had targeted Shia Afghanis.
This collaboration was instrumental in defining the targets of bombing operations in Afghanistan
and in capturing key Al Qaeda operatives, but abruptly ended in January, 2002, when
George W Bush named Iran as part of the "Axis of evil" in his State of the Union address.
In 2009, a leaked report stated that General Soleimani met Christopher R. Hill and General
Raymond T. Odierno in the office of Iraq’s president, Jalal Talabani.
Hill and General Odierno denied the occurrence of the meeting.
On 24 January 2011, Soleimani was promoted to major general by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.
Khamenei is described as having a close relationship with him, helping him financially and has
called Soleimani a "living martyr".
Soleimani has been described as "the single most powerful operative in the Middle East
today" and the principal military strategist and tactician in Iran's effort to combat Western-Israeli
influence and promote the expansion of Shiite influence throughout the Middle East.
Geneive Abdo has called him a "brilliant tactician".
In Iraq, as the commander of the Quds force, he is believed to have engineered the Iraqi
coalition government in its current form, supporting the election of Iraqi Prime Minister
Nuri Al-Maliki.
According to some sources, Soleimani is the principal leader and architect of the military
wing of the Lebanese Shia party Hezbollah since his appointment as Quds commander in
1998.
According to several sources, including Riad Hijab, a former Syrian premier who defected
in August 2012, he is also one of the staunchest supporters of the Syrian regime of Bashar
Al-Assad in the Syrian civil war.
In the later half of 2012, Soleimani assumed personal control of the Iranian intervention
in the Syrian civil war, when Iranians became deeply concerned about the Assad regime's
lack of ability to fight the opposition, and the fallout to the Islamic Republic if the
Syrian regime fell.
In Damascus he is reported to be coordinating the war from a base in Damascus at which a
Lebanese Hezbollah commander and an Iraqi Shiite militia coordinator have been mobilized,
in addition to Syrian and Iranian officers.
Brigadier General Hossein Hamadani, the Basij’s former deputy commander helps to run irregular
militias that the Soleimani hope to continue the fight if Assad falls.
Under Soleimani the command has "coördinated attacks, trained militias, and set up an elaborate
system to monitor rebel communications".
According to a Middle Eastern security official Dexter Filkins talked to, thousands of Quds
Force and Iraqi Shiite militiamen in Syria are "spread out across the entire country.”
The retaking of Qusayr from Syrian rebels was, according to John Maguire, a former C.I.A.
officer in Iraq, "orchestrated" by Soleimani and "a great victory for him.”
Sanctions In March 2007, Soleimani was included on a
list of Iranian individuals targeted with sanctions in United Nations Security Council
Resolution 1747.
On 18 May 2011, he was sanctioned again by the United States along with Syrian president
Bashar Assad and other senior Syrian officials due to his alleged involvement in providing
material support to the Syrian regime.
On 24 June 2011, the Official Journal of the European Union said the three Iranian Revolutionary
Guard members now subject to sanctions had been "providing equipment and support to help
the Syrian regime suppress protests in Syria".
The Iranians added to the EU sanctions list were two Revolutionary Guard commanders, Soleimani,
Mohammad Ali Jafari, and the Guard's deputy commander for intelligence, Hossein Taeb.
Soleimani was also sanctioned by the Swiss government in September 2011 due to the same
grounds cited by the European Union.
He is listed by the United States as a terrorist, which forbids U.S. citizens from doing business
with him.
The list, published in the EU's Official Journal on 24 June 2011, also includes a Syrian property
firm, an investment fund and two other enterprises accused of funding Assad's government.
The list also includes Mohammad Ali Jafari and Hossein Taeb.
References
External links David Ignatius, At the Tip of Iran's Spear,
Washington Post, 8 June 2008 Martin Chulov, Qassem Suleimani: the Iranian
general 'secretly running' Iraq, The Guardian, 28 July 2011
Dexter Filkins, The Shadow Commander, The New Yorker, 30 September 2013
Ali Mamouri, The Enigma of Qasem Soleimani And His Role in Iraq, Al-Monitor, 13 October
2013