Qasem Soleimani

Overview

Qasem Soleimani was an Iranian military commander who led the Quds Force, the foreign operations unit of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), from late 1997 or early 1998 until his death in 2020. Working under the political protection of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, Soleimani built and directed a network of armed groups serving the Iranian regime across the Middle East. His influence rested both on Quds Force resources and on personal relationships with commanders whose budgets and objectives did not always fit within its formal ranks. He made the network he founded, commonly called the Axis of Resistance, a central instrument of the regime’s regional strategy.

Soleimani’s operations crossed several conflicts. In Iraq, he helped organize militias that became central to the Popular Mobilization Forces, worked closely with Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis and played a decisive political role in Baghdad’s 2017 takeover of Kirkuk. In Syria, he deployed Iranian-aligned forces to sustain Bashar al-Assad’s regime during the Syrian civil war, coordinating with Russian intervention. His command also supported the Hezbollah terrorist organization in Lebanon and supplied money and weapons to Hamas, a terrorist organization in Gaza. United States officials held Soleimani and the Quds Force responsible for attacks that killed hundreds of American and coalition service members and wounded thousands more.

A United States drone strike killed Soleimani and al-Muhandis near Baghdad International Airport on January 3, 2020. President Donald Trump ordered the strike after attacks on coalition bases and the United States embassy in Baghdad. Esmail Qaani succeeded Soleimani as Quds Force commander. Their deaths disrupted the consolidation of Iraq’s militias and dealt a strategic setback to the Iranian regime’s external operations, although its armed network continued operating.

Early life

Soleimani’s formative military experience came during the 1980–1988 Iran–Iraq War. The war shaped a generation of IRGC officers who later led the Iranian regime’s operations beyond its borders. Soleimani and his eventual successor, Esmail Qaani, both gained military experience in that conflict before taking command of the Quds Force. Soleimani subsequently became closely identified with the force’s foreign mission and with the system of relationships through which the regime pursued its aims in neighboring countries.

By the time he assumed Quds Force command in late 1997 or early 1998, Soleimani had entered a role extending well beyond conventional battlefield leadership. It required him to deal with armed organizations, political figures and state authorities across several countries. His long tenure gave him time to cultivate those contacts personally. Qaani, who served as his deputy, chiefly managed internal Quds Force affairs while Soleimani traveled and met regional partners. That division of responsibilities later mattered when Qaani inherited command without comparable ties to many of the groups Soleimani had directed.

Career

As Quds Force commander, Soleimani developed a system that joined Iranian personnel, funding, training and weapons with local armed groups. Khamenei’s backing gave him room to design and execute this strategy. Soleimani’s authority was therefore more than a formal command title: individual leaders depended on access to him, while his knowledge of their rivalries and capabilities helped him coordinate them. Hezbollah, the Houthis and Iraqi Shia militias formed important parts of the regime’s regional armed network. Under Soleimani’s leadership, the regime supplied advanced weapons to Hezbollah and armed groups in Gaza.

Iraq became one of Soleimani’s principal arenas after the 2003 invasion. He was directly involved with Kata’ib Hezbollah from the Iraqi organization’s first activities in 2007, when it received training and financing from the Iranian regime. Its leaders later conferred with him before attacks on American bases. Soleimani also cultivated Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis as a close ally. When the Islamic State’s offensive prompted a large Iraqi militia mobilization, Soleimani’s Quds Force became the main Iranian force involved in organizing the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF). Militias he had trained and armed formed its core, alongside groups with weaker ties to Tehran.

Soleimani and al-Muhandis planned PMF combat operations against the Islamic State. They appeared together in eastern Iraq in March 2015. Soleimani was also present around Fallujah during the 2016 campaign. Iraqi security forces, especially counterterrorism forces, held the main combat role in the battle for Fallujah. Iranian-directed Shia militias helped besiege the city, but concerns about reprisals against Sunni residents constrained their entry. Iranian publicity gave Soleimani and those militias greater prominence than their battlefield role warranted. In 2017, the Iranian regime appointed Iraj Masjedi, a senior Soleimani adviser, ambassador to Iraq, reflecting the depth of the regime’s military and political relationships there.

Soleimani was central to Baghdad’s October 2017 recovery of Kirkuk after the Kurdistan independence referendum. He had sought in April to persuade Jalal Talabani’s party, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), to oppose the referendum. Amid the subsequent crisis, he visited Talabani’s grave and helped arrange an agreement between PUK leaders and Baghdad for Peshmerga forces to withdraw from Kirkuk. The published account named Soleimani as broker and Iraqi prime minister Haider al-Abadi as supervisor. Following the withdrawal, Iraqi army and PMF units entered the city. Losing Kirkuk severely damaged Kurdish independence efforts and strengthened the Iranian regime’s influence in Iraq. Soleimani met Masoud Barzani at the end of December 2017, after the referendum initiative had failed.

Syria was another major center of Soleimani’s work. During the Syrian civil war, he deployed Iranian-aligned forces to help keep Bashar al-Assad in power. Syria became the largest center of the Iranian regime’s foreign interference under his command. Soleimani visited Moscow in 2015 as Russia prepared to intervene militarily, and Russian air power subsequently aided Assad’s forces and their Iranian-backed allies. Soleimani directed forces involved in the Aleppo campaign; in November 2015, he appeared with Nujaba fighters in an operations room south of the city. His Syrian operations also helped establish a military presence from which the regime could threaten Israel.

Ideology and statements

Soleimani’s public position and operational record tied him closely to the Iranian regime’s strategy of projecting power through armed organizations. The Axis of Resistance joined groups with different local aims under a wider effort to challenge the regime’s adversaries, particularly Israel and the United States. His role was practical as well as symbolic: he distributed resources, met commanders, coordinated operations and maintained direct access to Khamenei. Those personal ties helped make him an unusually influential figure within the regime’s foreign policy and security system.

His conduct also showed the reach of that strategy beyond active battlefields. On June 19, 2016, Soleimani threatened Bahrain’s royal family with an armed uprising over actions taken in Manama. The threat illustrated his willingness to use the Quds Force’s regional position in political confrontations. In 2017, his intervention in Kirkuk pursued an Iranian objective through negotiations with Iraqi Kurdish leaders, followed by the movement of Iraqi troops and Iran-backed militias. Armed pressure and political bargaining were complementary parts of his command.

Leaders of groups he supported described his importance in unusually personal terms. In May 2018, Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar called Hamas’s relations with Soleimani and the IRGC strong and warm. Sinwar credited Iranian money, equipment and expertise with improving Hamas’s military capability. At Soleimani’s funeral in 2020, Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh praised his assistance and connected it to the organization’s strength. These statements reflected concrete military support, including funding for attack tunnels and rockets in Gaza.

Role in attacks or conflicts

Soleimani’s Quds Force worked through armed groups to attack the Iranian regime’s adversaries while supporting allied governments. In Iraq, Kata’ib Hezbollah received Iranian training and financing, and Soleimani remained directly involved with it. The Quds Force and its associated militias were implicated in attacks on American forces throughout his tenure. United States officials attributed 2018 rocket fire at their consulate in Basra to militia forces acting for the Quds Force under his command. His Iraqi network operated alongside the PMF’s campaign against the Islamic State, showing how groups involved in one military effort could also serve the regime’s wider confrontation with Washington.

In Syria, Soleimani’s intervention helped Assad’s regime survive the civil war with Russian assistance. He directed Iranian and allied forces in campaigns around Aleppo and worked through militia organizations from Iraq and Lebanon. The Iranian regime’s establishment of bases and missile capabilities in Syria posed a threat to Israel. On August 24, 2019, the Israel Defense Forces foiled a Quds Force drone attack that Soleimani directly commanded. His operations made Syria both a battleground for Assad’s survival and a platform for the regime’s regional military ambitions.

In Gaza, Soleimani directed financial assistance to Hamas’s Al-Qassam Brigades after the 2014 Gaza War. In 2015, millions of dollars went to the brigades under his orders to rebuild attack tunnels and replenish rockets. The Iranian regime also provided armed groups in Gaza with advanced weapons during his command. Sinwar’s 2018 account of Iranian support and Haniyeh’s 2020 funeral remarks confirmed the importance Hamas placed on those ties. Soleimani’s contacts extended to Islamic Jihad’s leadership, including Ziyad al-Nakhalah.

The United States designated the Quds Force and Soleimani for terrorism under Executive Order 13224 in 2007. On October 11, 2011, it designated Soleimani a specially designated global terrorist in connection with Quds Force officers involved in a plot against Saudi ambassador Adel al-Jubeir. American officials held Soleimani and the Quds Force responsible for the deaths of hundreds of American and coalition service members and injuries to thousands more. Israeli intelligence later supplied American officials with evidence concerning his responsibility for killing Americans and shared three phone numbers he used before the 2020 strike.

Attacks in late 2019 brought that confrontation to a crisis. Soleimani orchestrated attacks on coalition bases in Iraq over several months, including a December 27 rocket attack near Kirkuk that killed an American civilian contractor and injured American personnel. The United States struck Kata’ib Hezbollah targets on December 29. Members and supporters of Iran-backed Iraqi militias then attacked the United States embassy compound in Baghdad on December 31. Soleimani approved that attack, while developing further plans against American diplomats and service members in Iraq and elsewhere in the region. Those events preceded President Trump’s decision to order a strike against him.

Death or current status

On January 3, 2020, a United States drone strike near Baghdad International Airport killed Soleimani and al-Muhandis, the PMF’s deputy commander, along with other members of their convoy. The operation is covered separately in Assassination of Qasem Soleimani. The United States Department of Defense described the strike as action to protect American personnel after attacks on coalition bases and the embassy. It stated that Soleimani was actively developing plans for further attacks. His killing removed the commander who had maintained many of the Iranian regime’s most important relationships with regional armed groups.

The strike caught the Iranian regime off guard. Its leaders had expected Washington to avoid direct military retaliation despite earlier attacks and escalating pressure. Iran subsequently launched missiles at two military bases in Iraq; those strikes killed no American or Iraqi citizens. Regime-aligned militias continued attacking United States targets in Iraq to press for an American withdrawal. Soleimani’s death therefore changed the command structure and the immediate balance of risk, but it did not end the regime’s campaign against American forces.

Esmail Qaani succeeded Soleimani as Quds Force commander shortly after the strike. Qaani had handled much of the force’s internal administration and its Afghanistan and Pakistan affairs while Soleimani managed many regional relationships personally. Leaders of several armed groups had little prior contact with the new commander. Qaani continued meeting commanders, urging political cooperation in Iraq and pledging support for the network, but he inherited a system built around relationships his predecessor had developed over decades.

Legacy

Soleimani left a regional network embedded in several conflicts and states. In Iraq, the Quds Force’s training, financing and organization had helped make Iranian-backed militias central to the PMF. In Syria, his deployment of allied forces had helped preserve Assad’s regime during the civil war. In Lebanon and Gaza, the regime’s assistance strengthened terrorist organizations threatening Israel. His 2017 Kirkuk intervention demonstrated that his influence could shape political agreements and territorial outcomes without an Iranian conventional army taking the lead.

His death exposed how heavily parts of that network had depended on two men. The simultaneous loss of Soleimani and al-Muhandis interrupted PMF consolidation and increased competition among Iraqi militias. Qaani retained the Quds Force’s formal command and resources, yet his administrative background and weaker personal ties made his leadership different. Soleimani’s legacy thus included both the armed relationships he built and the difficulty of transferring his personal authority to a successor.

Reactions to his killing reflected the conflicts in which he had intervened. Iranian officials and allied armed groups treated him as a figure to avenge; a Fatemiyoun commander made such a vow at a 2020 conference in Mashhad. Hamas’s Haniyeh praised him at his funeral. Others emphasized responsibility for deaths in Syria and Iraq and the threats his operations posed beyond Iran. Russian opposition politician Leonid Gozman defended the United States strike on those grounds. Soleimani remained a defining figure of the Iranian regime’s external operations because he connected state authority, personal diplomacy and armed force across the region for more than two decades.