{"id":200237,"date":"2020-01-03T08:32:04","date_gmt":"2020-01-03T08:32:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=200237"},"modified":"2020-01-05T08:26:28","modified_gmt":"2020-01-05T08:26:28","slug":"who-is-qassem-suleimani-iran-farm-boy-who-became-more-powerful-than-a-president","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=200237","title":{"rendered":"Who was General Qassem Soleimani?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Press TV \u2013 Jan 3, 2020<\/h1>\n
\"\"<\/a>

General Suleimani. Click to enlarge<\/p><\/div>\n

Major General Qassem Soleimani, whose assassination by the US was confirmed earlier on Friday, had played a major role in defending Iran against its enemies and assisting regional countries fight\u00a0foreign occupation and terrorism.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Soleimani, born in 1957, started his military career by joining the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps\u00a0(IRGC)\u00a0following the victory of the Islamic revolution in 1979.<\/span><\/p>\n

During the imposed Iraqi war on Iran, which was launched\u00a0in 1980 and lasted for eight years, Soleimani gradually became known as an adept commander, leading Iranian troops in numerous battles against invading Ba’ath regime forces.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

A young Soleimani speaking to troops during the imposed Iraqi war of\u00a0 the1980s.\u00a0Click to enlarge<\/p><\/div>\n

Later appointed as the chief of the IRGC’s expeditionary Quds Force, Soleimani gradually became a forefront figure in Iran’s push to assist\u00a0regional states and allies counter foreign-backed interventions in the region.<\/span><\/p>\n

As foreign-backed\u00a0Takfiri outfits reared their heads\u00a0in recent years, the IRGC commander emerged as a key strategist and ingenious commander leading Iranian\u00a0military advisers assisting Syrian and Iraqi troops in battles against terrorists.<\/span><\/p>\n

The general was\u00a0frequently pictured on the frontlines during\u00a0anti-terrorism operations from Iraq\u2019s Mosul to Syria\u2019s Aleppo.<\/span><\/p>\n

In Iraq, at the height of Daesh\u2019s terror campaign, he assisted the Baghdad government in operations to retake the strategic oil-rich city of Tikrit from Daesh in 2015.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

General Qassem Soleimani, who commanded the Quds Force of Iran\u2019s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC), is pictured in northern Iraq in May 2017. Click to enlarge<\/p><\/div>\n

In January 2015, the head of Iraq\u2019s Badr Organization credited Tehran and Soleimani with saving Baghdad when Daesh first unleashed its campaign of terror in the neighboring country a year earlier.<\/span><\/p>\n

The general also took personal command of the battle against Takfiri militants in the Syrian city of Bukamal, located in Dayr al-Zawr Province, in November 2017.<\/span><\/p>\n

In November 2017, Soleimani declared the end of Daesh\u2019s territorial rule in a letter\u00a0addressed to Leader\u00a0of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei.<\/span><\/p>\n

Earlier this year, the Leader awarded Soleimani with\u00a0Iran\u2019s highest military order, the Order of Zulfaqar<\/strong><\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Hailed both by the enemies and foes as a major military tactician,\u00a0General Soleimani\u00a0topped Foreign Policy (FP)\u2019s 2019 list of Global Thinkers<\/strong><\/span><\/a> in defense and security.<\/span><\/p>\n

Several reports emerged about assassination plots against the commander by the US, Israel\u00a0and Saudi Arabia\u2013 which are believed to be among the major supporters of Takfiri terrorists wreaking havoc on the Middle East<\/span><\/p>\n

On Thursday, however, the Trump administration openly claimed responsibility<\/a><\/strong><\/span> for assassinating Soleimani.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In a statement on Friday, Iran’s leader\u00a0vowed “harsh revenge” for the perpetrators of the attack<\/span><\/p>\n

The Leader also offered condolences to the Iranian nation and General Soleimani\u2019s family, and declared three days of national mourning.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

18 months before his assassination by US drones Suleimani had issued a warning to Trump that could prove grimly prophetic: “You will start the war but we will end it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39262,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[51,28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-200237","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-Iran","category-Iraq"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200237","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/39262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=200237"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200237\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":200254,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200237\/revisions\/200254"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=200237"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=200237"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=200237"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}