Qassem Soleimani

Qasem Soleimani (; 11 March 1957 – 3 January 2020) was an Iranian military officer who served in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). From 1998 until his assassination by the United States in 2020, he was the commander of the Quds Force, an IRGC division primarily responsible for extraterritorial and clandestine military operations, and played a key role in the Syrian Civil War through securing Russian intervention. He was described as "the single most powerful operative in the Middle East" and a "genius of asymmetric warfare." Former Mossad director Yossi Cohen said Soleimani's strategies had "personally tightened a noose around Israel's neck."

In his later years, he was considered by some analysts to be the right-hand man of the supreme leader of Iran, Ali Khamenei, and the second-most powerful person in Iran behind Khamenei.U.S. killing of Iran's second most powerful man risks regional conflagration
reuters.com

For attacks orchestrated or attempted against American and other targets abroad, Soleimani was personally sanctioned by the United Nations and the European Union, and was designated as a terrorist by the United States in 2005.

Soleimani was assassinated by a targeted drone strike on 3 January 2020 in Baghdad, Iraq. Iranian government officials publicly mourned Soleimani's death and launched missiles against U.S. military bases in Iraq, wounding 110 American troops. Iranian outlets subsequently represented Soleimani as a national hero.

Early life

Soleimani was born on 11 March 1957, in the village of Qanat-e Malek, Kerman Province.Jamie Dettmer,
Iran's Shadowy Military Commander May Prove Tough Foe in Death
'', 3January 2020, ''VOA''Najmeh Bozorgmehr,
Qassem Soleimani, Iranian military commander, 1957–2020
'', 3January 2020, ''Financial Times''
General Qassim Soleimani, charismatic leader of Iran's elite Quds Force who wrong-footed the West to become a key power broker in the Middle East—obituary
'', 3January 2020, ''The Daily Telegraph'' He was of ethnic Lur descent. He left school at the age of 13 and moved to the city of Kerman to work on a construction site to help repay his father's agricultural debts. In 1975, he began working as a contractor for the Kerman Water Organization. When not at work, he spent his time with weight training in local gyms, or attending the sermons of Hojjat Kamyab, a preacher and a protégé of Ali Khamenei, who according to Soleimani encouraged him to "revolutionary activities".

Military career

Early career

Soleimani joined the Revolutionary Guard (IRGC) in 1979 following the Iranian Revolution, which saw the overthrow of the Shah and Ayatollah Khomeini take power. Reportedly, his training was minimal, but he advanced rapidly. Early in his career as a guardsman, he helped to prevent a Kurdish uprising in northwestern Iran.

On 22 September 1980, when Saddam Hussein launched an invasion of Iran, setting off the Iran–Iraq War (1980–1988), Soleimani joined the battlefield serving as the leader of a military company, consisting of men from Kerman whom he assembled and trained. He quickly earned a reputation for bravery, and rose through the ranks because of his role in successful operations to retake the lands Iraq had occupied, and eventually became the commander of the 41st Tharallah Division while still in his 20s, participating in most of the war's battles and major operations. He was mostly stationed at the southern front. He was seriously injured in Operation Tariq-ol-Qods. In a 1990 interview, he mentioned Operation Fath-ol-Mobin as "the best" operation he participated in and "very memorable", due to its difficulties yet positive outcome. He was also engaged in leading and organizing irregular warfare missions deep inside Iraq by the Ramadan Headquarters. It was at this point that Soleimani established relations with Kurdish Iraqi leaders and the Shia Badr Organization, both opposed to Saddam Hussein.

On 17 July 1985, Soleimani opposed the IRGC leadership's plan to deploy forces to two islands in western Arvand Rud, on the Shatt al-Arab River. In 1987, a division that Soleimani commanded was shelled with artillery containing chemical weapons by the Iraqi Army.

After the war, during the 1990s, he was an IRGC commander in Kerman Province. In this region, which is relatively close to Afghanistan, Afghan-grown opium travels to Turkey and on to Europe. Soleimani's military experience helped him earn a reputation as a successful fighter against drug trafficking.

During the 1999 student protests in Tehran, Soleimani was one of the IRGC officers who signed a letter to President Mohammad Khatami warning that if he did not suppress the protests, the military would, and suggesting Khatami would be deposed. According to the former IRGC commander, Mohammad Ali Jafari, Soleimani also intervened in the 2009 protests to "control the insecurity and riots".

Command of the Quds Force

According to Dexter Filkins, Soleimani became the commander of the Quds Force, named after the Persian word for Jerusalem, in 1998. According to Ali Alfoneh, Soleimani was appointed as the commander of the IRGC's Quds Force between 10 September 1997 and 21 March 1998. Soleimani strengthened the relationship between Quds Force and Hezbollah upon his appointment, and supported the latter by sending in operatives to assist in forcing Israel's withdrawal and the end to the Israeli occupation of Southern Lebanon.

According to the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, an Israeli think tank, Soleimani "directed a network of insurgent groups in Iraq that killed over a thousand Americans." The Israeli think tank also claimed the Quds Force, also known as the Jerusalem Force, was reported by ''The Telegraph'' to control a company that "specializes in anti-tank mines and operates under the aegis of the IRGC’s al-Quds or Jerusalem Force" and was responsible for making bombs that killed American and British soldiers in Iraq. ''The Washington Posts Alex Horton reported that the Quds Force provided explosively formed penetrator "training and logistics to militants in Iraq". The Pentagon attributed the presence of EFPs in Iraq to the Quds Force and a spokesperson for U.S. Senator Ted Cruz claimed Soleimani was responsible for the deaths of hundreds of American military personnel. A spokesperson from the United States Central Command claimed more than 500 American soldiers were killed by EFPs and other Iranian weapons in the Iraq War.

Soleimani played a role in advising Hezbollah for its defense from Israel in the 2006 Lebanon War and at least once accompanied Imad Mughniyeh. In an interview aired in October 2019, he said he was in Lebanon during the 2006 Israel–Hezbollah War to manage the conflict.

On 11 January 2007, the United States raided the Iranian Liaison Office in Erbil, Iraq, believing that IRGC Commander-in-Chief Mohammad Ali Jafari and Soleimani were there, and detained five Iranians with diplomatic passports.

Nine days later, on 20 January, "an al-Qaida-linked Sunni militant group" or "illegally armed militia group", reported by Dexter Filkins to be Asa'ib Ahl al-Haq, with the Iran-trained Hezbollah commander Ali Musa Daqduq, infiltrated the U.S. Army's Karbala Provincial Joint Coordination Headquarters and killed five American soldiers, in what was reported as "perhaps the boldest and most sophisticated" attack of the Iraq War. The attackers were wearing American uniforms and had American weapons. Following the attack, a U.S. Department of Defense official, major general Kevin Bergner, claimed the Quds Force had knowledge of and planned the attack. On the same day, 13 American soldiers died in a helicopter crash and seven others were killed throughout Iraq, making it the third worst day for U.S. troops during the entire war. Soleimani 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 Mughniyeh. Soleimani helped arrange a ceasefire between the Iraqi Army and Mahdi Army in March 2008.

Soleimani was described by an ex- CIA operative, responsible for clandestine operations, as "the single most powerful operative in the Middle East today" and the principal military strategist and tactician in Iran's effort to deter Western influence and promote the expansion of Shia and Iranian influence throughout the Middle East. According to General David Petraeus, who served as the US commander of the Multi-National Force in Iraq, Soleimani claimed in 2008 that he was personally responsible for the policy of Iran when it came to IRGC operations in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, southern Lebanon and in Gaza. In Iraq, as the commander of the Quds Force, he was believed to have strongly influenced the organization of the Iraqi government, notably supporting the election of previous Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki.

In 2009, ''The Economist'' stated on the basis of a leaked report that Christopher R. Hill and General Raymond T. Odierno (America's two most senior officials in Baghdad at the time) met with Soleimani in the office of Iraq's president, Jalal Talabani, but withdrew the story after Hill and Odierno denied the meeting had occurred.

On 24 January 2011, Soleimani was promoted to the rank of major general ('' Sarlashkar'') by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. Khamenei was described as having a close relationship with him, calling Soleimani a "living martyr" and helping him financially.

According to the American government-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, the IRGC-managed Fars News Agency reported in January 2020 that Soleimani and the Quds Force were involved in many foreign conflicts including "pressuring occupiers in Iraq and Afghanistan to leave the region" and suppressing Syrian street protests against Bashar al-Assad.

U.S. invasion of Afghanistan

In 1998, Soleimani played a role in diffusing the crisis between Iran and the Taliban-ruled Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan caused by the 8 August 1998 killing of Iranian diplomats in Afghanistan and the 1998 Mazar-i-Sharif massacre of Hazara Shias by the Taliban. While the Commander-in-Chief of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Yahya Rahim Safavi, advocated for an Iranian invasion of Afghanistan to topple the Taliban regime, Soleimani convinced Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei that a policy of "strategic patience" would be more fruitful. Soleimani instead tripled Iranian support for the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance and his Quds Force ran a secret training camp in Tajikistan for its fighters.

Following the September 11 attacks in 2001, senior U.S. State Department official Ryan Crocker flew to Geneva to meet with Iranian diplomats who were under the leadership of Soleimani with the purpose of collaborating to destroy the Taliban. When the United States invaded Afghanistan in October 2001 after the September 11 attacks, Soleimani's Quds Force collaborated with U.S. forces and led the 2001 uprising in Herat against the Taliban, which included the Hazaras, Northern Alliance and Quds Force staging an uprising that liberated the city before U.S. forces came in. This collaboration was instrumental in defining the targets of air bombing operations in Afghanistan and in capturing key Al-Qaeda operatives, but ended in January 2002, when President George W. Bush named Iran as part of the "axis of evil" in his State of the Union address. According to the British author Adrian Levy, Soleimani sheltered al-Qaeda "fighters" and "senior members of its military council".

Relationship with Hezbollah in Lebanon

Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah said that Soleimani first came to Lebanon in 1998.

On 12 July 2006, Hezbollah, under the operational command of Imad Mughniyeh and Khalid Bazzi, launched a cross-border raid into Israel, killing three IDF soldiers and taking two hostages. Israel responded by invading Lebanon. Soleimani on that day was in Damascus, but went to Beirut under intense Israeli bombing and throughout the course of the war stayed in Dahieh alongside Hezbollah's Secretary-General Nasrallah and military chief Imad Mughniyeh, forming a three-man command to supervise all of Hezbollah's operations during the war.

Support for Palestinian resistance

Soleimani is alleged to have strengthened the relationship with Hamas, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and the Quds Force during the Second Intifada, when he and the chief of military operations of Hezbollah, Imad Mughniyeh, oversaw the smuggling of weapons to the Palestinian Hamas and Islamic Jihad factions, according to Lebanese militant Anis al-Naqqash.

After the 2007 blockade of the Gaza Strip by Israel and Egypt, Soleimani's Quds Force was alleged to have been active in supporting the construction of tunnels under Gaza and the smuggling of weapons through the tunnels to the armed wings of Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad. In 2021, a senior Hamas representative to Lebanon, Ahmad Abd al-Hadi said:

Today there are 360 kilometers of tunnels in Gaza... Two people came up with the idea of digging these tunnels: The first is the martyred commander Imad Mughniyeh, and the second is Hajj Qasem Soleimani...

According to the American Enterprise Institute, Soleimani along with other Iranian officials worked with Hamas leaders against the Israeli Army during the 2008-2009 Gaza War.

Syrian Civil War

According to several sources, including Riad Hijab, a former Syrian premier who deserted in August 2012, Soleimani was one of the strongest supporters of the Syrian government of Bashar al-Assad in the Syrian Civil War. Soleimani was involved in planning and carrying out the Siege of Baba Amr during the Siege of Homs in 2011–2014, according to the then-Syrian Minister of Defense, Ali Abdullah Ayyoub. In the later half of 2012, Soleimani assumed personal control of the Iranian intervention in the Syrian Civil War, when the Iranians became deeply concerned about the Assad government's inability to fight the opposition, and the negative consequences to the Islamic Republic if the Syrian government fell. He reportedly coordinated the war from a base in Damascus at which a Lebanese Hezbollah commander and an Iraqi Shia militia coordinator were mobilized, in addition to Syrian and Iranian officers. Under Soleimani, the command "coordinated 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 Shia militiamen in Syria were "spread out across the entire country". The retaking of Qusayr in May 2013 from rebel forces and Al-Nusra Front was, according to John Maguire, a former CIA officer in Iraq, "orchestrated" by Soleimani.

Brigadier General Hossein Hamadani, the Basij's former deputy commander, helped to run irregular militias that Soleimani hoped would continue the fight if Assad fell. Soleimani helped establish the National Defence Forces (NDF) in 2013 which would formalize the coalition of pro-Assad groups.

Soleimani was much credited in Syria for the strategy that assisted President Bashar al-Assad in finally repulsing rebel forces and recapturing key cities and towns. He was involved in the training of government-allied militias and the coordination of decisive military offensives. The sighting of Iranian UAVs in Syria strongly suggested that his command, the Quds Force, was involved in the civil war.

In a visit to the Lebanese capital Beirut on 29 January 2015, Soleimani laid wreaths at the graves of the slain Hezbollah members, including Jihad Mughniyah, which strengthened suspicions about a collaboration between Hezbollah and the Quds Force.

Orchestration of military coalition in 2015

In 2015, Soleimani began gathering support from various sources to combat the newly resurgent Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and rebel groups which had both successfully taken large swaths of territory from Assad's forces. He was reportedly the main architect of the joint intervention involving Russia as a new partner with Assad and Hezbollah.

According to Reuters, at a meeting in Moscow in July, Soleimani unfurled a map of Syria to explain to his Russian hosts how a series of defeats for President Bashar al-Assad could be turned into victory—with Russia's help. Soleimani's visit to Moscow was the first step in planning for the Russian military intervention that has reshaped the Syrian war and forged a new Iran–Russia alliance in support of the Syrian (and Iraqi) governments. Iran's supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, also sent a senior envoy to Moscow to meet President Vladimir Putin. "Putin reportedly told senior Iranian envoy'Okay we will intervene. Send Qassem Soleimani.'" Soleimani went to explain the map of the theatre and coordinate the strategic escalation of military forces in Syria.

Operations in Aleppo

Soleimani had a decisive impact on the theater of operations, which led to a strong advance in southern Aleppo with the government and allied forces re-capturing two military bases and dozens of towns and villages in a matter of weeks. There was also a series of major advances towards Kuweiris air-base to the north-east. By mid-November, the Syrian army and its allies had gained ground in southern areas of Aleppo Governorate, capturing numerous rebel strongholds. Soleimani was reported to have personally led the drive deep into the southern Aleppo countryside where many towns and villages fell into government hands. He reportedly commanded the Syrian Arab Army's 4th Mechanized Division, Hezbollah, Harakat Al-Nujaba (Iraqi), Kata'ib Hezbollah (Iraqi), Liwaa Abu Fadl Al-Abbas (Iraqi), and Firqa Fatayyemoun (Afghan/Iranian volunteers).

In early February 2016, backed by Russian and Syrian air force airstrikes, the 4th Mechanized Division—in close coordination with Hezbollah, the National Defense Forces (NDF), Kata'eb Hezbollah, and Harakat Al-Nujaba—launched an offensive in Aleppo Governorate's northern countryside, which eventually broke the three-year siege of Nubl and Al-Zahraa and cut off the rebels' main supply route from Turkey. According to a senior, non-Syrian security source close to Damascus, Iranian fighters played a crucial role in the conflict. "Qassem Soleimani is there in the same area", he said. In December 2016, new photos emerged of Soleimani at the Citadel of Aleppo, though the exact date of the photos is unknown.

In late March 2017, Soleimani was seen in the northern Hama Governorate countryside in Syria, reportedly aiding Major General Suheil al-Hassan to repel a major rebel offensive.

War against ISIL

Soleimani had a significant role in Iran's fight against ISIL in Iraq. He was described as the "linchpin" bringing together Kurdish and Shia forces to fight ISIS, overseeing joint operations conducted by the two groups.

In 2014, Soleimani was in the Iraqi city of Amirli, to work with Iraqi forces to push back ISIL militants. The ''Los Angeles Times'' reported that Amirli was the first town to successfully withstand an ISIL invasion, and was secured thanks to "an unusual partnership of Iraqi and Kurdish soldiers, Iranian-backed Shia militias and U.S. warplanes".

A senior Iraqi official told the BBC that when the city of Mosul fell, the rapid reaction of Iran, rather than American bombing, was what prevented a more widespread collapse. Soleimani also seems to have been instrumental in planning the operation to relieve Amirli in Saladin Governorate, where ISIL had laid siege to an important city. In fact, the Quds force operatives under Soleimani's command seem to have been deeply involved not only with the Iraqi army and Shia militias but also with the Kurdish forces in the Battle of Amirli, providing liaisons for intelligence-sharing along with arms, munitions and expertise.

In the operation to liberate Jurf Al Sakhar, he was reportedly "present on the battlefield". Some Shia militia commanders described Soleimani as "fearless", one pointing out that the Iranian general never wears a flak jacket even on the front lines.

In November 2014, Shia and Kurdish forces under Soleimani's command pushed ISIL out of the Iraqi villages of Jalawla and Saadia in the Diyala Governorate.

Soleimani played an integral role in the organization and planning of the crucial operation to retake the city of Tikrit in Iraq from ISIL. The city of Tikrit rests on the left bank of the Tigris river and is the largest and most important city between Baghdad and Mosul, giving it a high strategic value. The city fell to ISIL during 2014 when ISIL made immense gains in northern and central Iraq. After its capture, ISIL's massacre at Camp Speicher led to 1,600 to 1,700 deaths of Iraqi Army cadets and soldiers. After months of careful preparation and intelligence gathering an offensive to encircle and capture Tikrit was launched in early March 2015.

In 2016, photos published by a Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) source showed Soleimani attending a meeting of PMF commanders in Iraq to discuss the Battle of Fallujah.

CIA chief Mike Pompeo said he sent Soleimani and other Iranian leaders a letter holding them responsible for any attacks on U.S. interests by forces under their control. According to Mohammad Mohammadi Golpayegani, a senior aide for Iran's supreme leader, Soleimani ignored the letter when it was handed over to him during the Abu Kamal offensive against ISIL, saying "I will not take your letter nor read it and I have nothing to say to these people."

Political career

In 1999, Soleimani, along with other senior IRGC commanders, signed a letter to then-President Mohammad Khatami regarding the student protests in July. They wrote "Dear Mr. Khatami, how long do we have to shed tears, sorrow over the events, practice democracy by chaos and insults, and have revolutionary patience at the expense of sabotaging the system? Dear president, if you don't make a revolutionary decision and act according to your Islamic and national missions, tomorrow will be so late and irrecoverable that cannot be even imagined."

Iranian media reported in 2012 that he might be replaced as the commander of Quds Force in order to allow him to run in the 2013 presidential election. He reportedly refused to be nominated for the election. According to BBC News, in 2015 a campaign started among conservative bloggers for Soleimani to stand for 2017 presidential election.
alternate archive URL, archived 12 August 2018
/ref> In 2016, he was speculated as a possible candidate, however in a statement published on 15 September 2016, he called speculations about his candidacy as "divisive reports by the enemies" and said he will "always remain a simple soldier serving Iran and the Islamic Revolution".

In the summer of 2018, Soleimani and Tehran exchanged public remarks with American President Donald Trump related to Red Sea shipping which heightened tensions between the two countries and their allies in the region.

Masoud Barzani, who is the leader of the Kurdistan Democratic Party in Iraq, claimed Soleimani supported the US invasion of Iraq as a "great victory" for Iran.

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 U.S. along with Syrian president Bashar al-Assad and other senior Syrian officials due to his alleged involvement in providing material support to the Syrian government.

In 2007, the U.S. included him in a "Designation of Iranian Entities and Individuals for Proliferation Activities and Support for Terrorism", which forbade U.S. citizens from doing business with him. The list, published in the EU's Official Journal on 24 June 2011, also included a Syrian property firm, an investment fund and two other enterprises accused of funding the Syrian government. The list also included Mohammad Ali Jafari and Hossein Taeb.

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 government 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 on the same grounds cited by the European Union.

On 13 November 2018, the U.S. sanctioned an Iraqi military leader named Shibl Muhsin 'Ubayd Al-Zaydi and others who allegedly were acting on Soleimani's behalf in financing military actions in Syria or otherwise providing support for terrorism in the region.

Public image

Public image in Iran

According to the former U.S. Department of State official Ryan Crocker, Soleimani was referred to as Haji Qassem by Iranian officials. A poll conducted in collaboration with IranPoll for the University of Maryland School of Public Policy indicated that by October 2019, Soleimani was viewed favorably by 82% of Iranians with 59% of Iranians viewing him very favorably. He was often considered the second most powerful leader in Iran, behind Ayatollah Khamenei.'VS doden topgeneraal Iran, vrees voor escalatie groeit' (US kill top general Iran, fear for escalation grows)
''NRC Handelsblad'', 3 January 2020. Retrieved 10 January 2020. Since the Iran–Iraq War (1980–88), in which Iran was attacked by Saddam Hussein's Iraq and also felt attacked by other countries which sided with Iraq, including the U.S., which supplied weapons and intelligence to Iraq,'Het conflict tussen Iran en de VS in vogelvlucht' (The conflict between Iran and the US in a nutshell)
''NRC Handelsblad'', 6 January 2020. Retrieved 10 January 2020. Soleimani had developed into an architect of Iran's foreign policies in the Middle East'Soleimani had een heldenstatus in Iran, hij maakte het land machtiger' (Soleimani had a heroic status in Iran, he made the country mightier)
3 January 2020. Retrieved 10 January 2020. 'Na aanval op Soleimani lijkt einde invloed VS in Iraq nabij' (After attack on Soleimani, US influence in Iraq seems nearly ended)
''NRC Handelsblad'', 3 January 2020. Retrieved 10 January 2020. and a key figure behind Iran's foreign and defence policies. According to "social media users" and a writer on the website Foodbeast named "Ayomari", a prominent chef and influencer named Navab Ebrahimi was arrested for posting a recipe to make Persian cutlets on the third anniversary of the death of Soleimani. The Foodbeast article claims Iranian opponents began to refer to him as "Kotelt" (a Persian term for "cutlet"), supposedly drawing a connection between his slain body following the effect of the airstrike and the minced meat used in making cutlets.

Public image outside of Iran

The commander of the Iraqi shia militia Asa'ib Ahl al-Haq, Qais Khazali, told Frontline in 2017 that "Qassem Soleimani has a great personality, he is humble, he has great political intelligence." Miriam Berger of ''The Washington Post wrote that Soleimani was "both revered and reviled". Israeli journalist Amotz Asa-El of ''The Jerusalem Post'' referred to Soleimani as "a warrior". General David Petraeus described Soleimani as "a very, very capable" adversary.

Iranian propaganda

Soleimani cultivated public relations and a personality cult that formed part of his image.

After Soleimani's death, the Iranian propaganda campaign intensified efforts in coordinating positive international public opinion toward him. These efforts included using state-run TV channels and several social media accounts, a large proportion of which had newly been created, and posting images such as heroic, "noble warrior" depictions of Soleimani, appealing to both nationalists and religious conservatives. It is believed by many that these measures have been at least partially successful, arguing that even some American outlets were biased.

Assassination

Soleimani was assassinated on 3 January 2020 around 1:00a.m. local time (22:00 UTC 2January), by a U.S. drone strike near Baghdad International Airport. BBC News, NBC News, DW News, ''Time'', ''The Guardian'' and other media outlets have said Soleimani was assassinated or described the killing as an assassination. Senior officials of the U.S. Department of State compared it to Operation Vengeance in World War II, when American pilots shot down the plane carrying Japanese Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto – a comparison concurred with by ''The New York Times'' and other prominent media and pundits.Ian W. Toll
"Before Soleimani, there was Yamamoto. But the history is very different."
12 January 2020, ''Washington Post,'' retrieved 26 September 2020; ''"The U.S. military's targeted killing of... Qasem Soleimani... was not unprecedented. A famous antecedent occurred during World War II, when U.S. forces targeted a senior Japanese admiral by shooting down his aircraft in the South Pacific. Lately the episode has been mentioned amid the debate over justifications of the Soleimani strike..."''Michael O'Hanlon (Senior Fellow and Director of Research for Brookings Foreign Policy), quoted in
"Around the halls: Experts react to the killing of Iranian commander Qassem Soleimani,"
3 January 2020, Brookings Institution; ''"Killing him was more akin to shooting down the plane of Japanese Admiral Yamamoto in World War II than attacking a civilian leader."''. Retrieved 26 September 2021. Lowry, Rich
Where Does Admiral Yamamoto Go to Get His Apology?"
in "Politics & Policy", 6 January 2020, ''National Review''. Retrieved 26 September 2020; ''"Before there was Qasem Soleimani, there was Admiral Yamamoto... If it was wrong to kill Soleimani, it was wrong to kill Yamamoto — just as barbaric and illegal, just as damnable an 'assassination'"''.

Soleimani was on his way to meet Iraqi Prime Minister Adil Abdul-Mahdi and had just left his plane, which arrived in Iraq from Lebanon or Syria. Adil Abdul Mahdi said Soleimani was bringing Iran's response to a letter that Iraq had sent out on behalf of Saudi Arabia in order to ease tensions between the two countries in the region. The prime minister did not reveal the message's exact content. Also killed were four members of the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), including Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the Iraqi military commander, former head of the PMF. Soleimani's body was identified using a ring he wore on his finger.

Soleimani was posthumously promoted to the rank of Lieutenant General and praised as a martyr by speaker of the Iranian parliament Ali Larijani and Mohsen Rezaei, a former commander of the IRGC. Soleimani was succeeded by Esmail Ghaani as commander of the Quds Force.

According to the Iranian Students News Agency quoting the Iraqi Al-Ahd network, there are diverse narratives concerning the drones which killed Soleimani and Abu-Mahdi al-Muhandis). One mentions American drones taking off from Kuwait and entering Iraq, which the headquarters of the Kuwaiti Armed Forces denied after a few hours. The other is that an American UAV took off from the Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar. Also, according to Ahmed al-Asadi, a member of the Iraqi Parliament: "The drones which carried out the assassination operation, were three American UAVs that took-off from the military-base of Ain al-Assad and flew in the sky of Baghdad for 20 hours on Thursday morning and then came back directly to the "Ain al-Assad" base after carrying out the assassination operation." According to Radio-Farda quoting American media, the drones were the MQ-9 Reaper.

U.S. decision-making

CNBC reported that the U.S. had been in pursuit of Soleimani for decades. President Trump had expressed a desire to target Soleimani in a 2017 meeting with then National Security Adviser H. R. McMaster. On 13 January 2020, five senior current and former Trump administration officials told NBC News that Trump had authorized the killing of Soleimani in June 2019 on the basis that he had been involved in the killing of many Americans, a decision backed by U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. In making the 2020 strike, the Pentagon focused on Soleimani's past actions and on deterring future such actions. The strike followed attacks on the American embassy in Baghdad by supporters of an Iran-backed Iraqi Shia militia and the 2019 K-1 Air Base attack. Anonymous officials told ''The New York Times'' that Trump had initially decided to strike at the Shia militia, but instead chose the most extreme option proposed (killing Soleimani) after seeing television footage of the attack on the embassy. The death of an Iraqi-American contractor in a rocket attack in December 2019 was reportedly also used as justification for the strike, contradicting the Trump administration's claim that Soleimani was targeted because he was plotting "imminent" attacks on Americans and had to be targeted in order to stop these attacks.

The U.S. Defense Department said the strike was carried out "at the direction of the President" and asserted that Soleimani had been planning further attacks on American diplomats and military personnel and had approved the attacks on the American embassy in Baghdad in response to U.S. airstrikes in Iraq and Syria on 29 December 2019, and that the strike was meant to deter future attacks. As part of the administration's changing justification for the strike, a national security adviser asserted that Soleimani had intended further attacks on American diplomats and troops, and Defense Secretary Mark Esper asserted the general had been expected to mastermind an attack within days. President Trump stated in a Fox News interview that four embassies, including the U.S. embassy in Baghdad, had been targeted; Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said it was not known where or when the attacks would have taken place.

Legal status of the assassination

In June 2020, Iran placed an arrest warrant for U.S. president Donald Trump, with an Iranian prosecutor saying Trump and 35 others "faced murder and terrorism charges" over the killing of Soleimani.

The strike was not approved by the U.S. Congress or consented to by the Iraqi government, leading to controversy regarding the legality of killing an Iranian military leader in Iraqi airspace.

An arrest warrant was issued by an Iraqi court for President Donald Trump in connection with the killing of Soleimani. The arrest warrant was for a charge of premeditated murder, which carries the death penalty on conviction.

Under U.S. law

On 14 February 2020, in a legally required unclassified memorandum to Congress, the Trump administration said it was authorized under both the Constitution and the 2002 Authorization of Use of Military Force Against Iraq.

However, the Chairman of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, Eliot Engel, said "The 2002 authorization was passed to deal with Saddam Hussein. This law had nothing to do with Iran or Iranian government officials in Iraq. To suggest that 18 years later this authorization could justify killing an Iranian official stretches the law far beyond anything Congress ever intended," adding that he "looked forward" to Pompeo testifying in a 28 February hearing.

Under international law

The United States, as a member of the United Nations, has ratified the Charter of the United Nations and, therefore, is bound by its provisions. Agnès Callamard, United Nations Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, and Director of Columbia University's Global Freedom of Expression project, researched the alleged legal basis for the killing of Soleimani advanced by the United States government and stated that the Soleimani's killing could have been justified under international law only if it had been a response to an "imminent threat." However, she said that the United States had provided no evidence to support that contention. "Absent an actual imminent threat to life, the course of action taken by the U.S. was unlawful," Callamard wrote in a report that she presented in July 2020 to the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva.''New York Times'', 9 July 202
"The Killing of Qassim Suleimani Was Unlawful, Says U.N. Expert: The United States Provided No Evidence that Its Fatal January Drone Strike against General Suleimani Was in Response to an Imminent Threat, Said a United Nations Special Rapporteur"
/ref> The Trump administration's February 2020 memorandum to Congress was "remarkably vague and inconsequential as far as a possible imminent threat is concerned," Ms. Callamard wrote in the report. "Even at the most basic level, the U.S. did not demonstrate that striking Suleimani was 'necessary.'"

Callamard also concluded that the killing sets an alarming precedent—it was the first targeted drone killing of a senior foreign government official on the territory of a third country. The world now faced "the very real prospect that states may opt to 'strategically' eliminate high-ranking military officials outside the context of a 'known' war, and seek to justify the killing on the grounds of the target's classification as a 'terrorist' who posed a potential future threat," Callamard said in her report. Also, she noted that scores of countries and many non-state actors now have operational drones, and that drones kill many non-combatants for every person targeted.

Reaction

According to Agnès Callamard, the UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial killing, "the killings of Qassem Suleimani and Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis violates international human rights law". She said the U.S. is required to confirm "the individual targeted constituted an imminent threat to others." Callamard also described the killing of other individuals alongside Soleimani as "unlawful" and other scholars argue it violates international law. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, Medea Benjamin (the founder of anti-war advocacy group Code Pink) and Hillary Mann Leverett (a political risk consultant and former director of Iran affairs at the White House's National Security Council) called the assassination of Soleimani "flatly illegal".

Analysts Ali Vaez and Iain King and some Twitter users compared the event to the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, and #Ferdinand and #WWIII began trending on Twitter because of what BBC News called "obvious parallels ..a single strike bringing existing tensions to boiling point". Some protesters raised concerns that Iraq could become a site of open clashes between Iran and the U.S. following the assassination of Soleimani in Baghdad and Iran's retaliatory missile attacks on U.S. bases.

Democrats, including top 2020 presidential candidates, condemned the killing of Soleimani, arguing that it escalated the conflict with Iran, and risked retaliation or war.

According to Jeremy Bowen of the BBC, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) praised the killing of Soleimani as a divine intervention, saying it helped jihadists.

UK Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab, described the American action as "self-defence".

According to a Meta (then Facebook) spokesperson, Instagram and its parent company Meta (then Facebook) are removing posts "that voice support for slain Iranian commander Qassem Soleimani to comply with U.S. sanctions."

Some activists living out of reach of the Iranian authorities, such as Saghar Erica Kasraie, Reza Alijani, and Masih Alinejad, condemned Soleimani. Some Iranians mourning for the dead of Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752 less than a week after his death called him a murderer and tore up his pictures during the protests. BBC reported that "the protests were, however, far smaller than the mass demonstrations across Iran in support of Soleimani".

Ismail Haniyeh described Soleimani as "the martyr of Jerusalem" in a speech pronounced in Tehran during his funeral. Hassan Nasrallah after the assassination claimed "Trump is the U.S. president who makes up the most lies, they are all liars, but he is the worst. 'Haj Qasem Soleimani' was never planning to attack U.S. embassies! Trump just wanted to make up an excuse for his crime."

Iran's Foreign Minister Javad Zarif