Who Was General Soleimani?


Iranian General Soleimani
Iranian General Qassem Soleimani (wikicommons/Erfan Kouchari)

Just who was General Soleimani, killed in an American airstrike last week? He was an Iranian military leader, head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, an enemy of Israel and the United States, and a terrorist.

You might be wondering about this relatively unknown figure whose death has spurred increasing unrest. Besides the military title he held, General Soleimani was henchman and thug for his beloved Ayatollah Khamenei, Iran’s Supreme Leader. And he was many more bad things, as well.

Who was General Qassem Soleimani?

Ayatollah Khamenei kisses General Soleimani
Ayatollah Khamenei kisses General Soleimani

He was an avowed enemy of Israel, striving to wipe the Jewish state off the map.

He was also committed to attacking the United States, having backed past attacks and planned attacks in the near future.

A backer of Iran’s terrorist proxies and all efforts to cause terror in the fragile Middle East.

In other words, General Soleimani was a terrorist.

Fighting the ‘Zionist Regime’

Anti-Zionist protest by Hezbollah supporters
Anti-Zionist protest by Hezbollah supporters

Just last year, the United States made an unprecedented move, designating Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a terror organization. In a statement, Donald Trump noted that the group “actively participates in, finances, and promotes terrorism as a tool of statecraft.” And who commanded this, by definition terrorist group? Since 1998, that would be General Qassem Soleimani.

As commander of the IRGC, Soleimani was constantly in conflict with Israel. You see, Iran backs terrorist proxies around the Middle East (and the world), including Hezbollah in Lebanon and both Hamas and Islamic Jihad in Gaza — all of whom are committed to destroying Israel.

During the 2006 Second Lebanon War which saw Israel pitted against her enemies to the north, General Soleimani was in Lebanon to oversee Hezbollah’s fight against the Jewish state. Even after that war, Soleimani focused on “the removal and uprooting of the child-killing Zionist regime.”

A Global Terrorist Campaign

Soleimani funeral

But Israel was not the only focus of General Soleimani’s evil gaze. More than five years ago, the CIA called him “the most powerful operative in the Middle East today,” as Soleimani branched out from Iran and Lebanon to help Syrian dictator Assad with his ongoing assault on the Syrian people, under the guise of a civil war.

And Soleimani’s worst acts were perhaps to come. In the wake of the U.S. airstrike that led to the general’s death, Trump informed the American public that under Soleimani’s direction, Iran “was planning a very big attack and a very bad attack for us,” and that the airstrike saved American lives.

So as those of us who stand for Israel continue to pray for God’s protection over Israel and the U.S., we will not mourn the loss of General Qassem Soleimani, who Trump eulogized as not a man, but “a monster.”