A step closer to peace
Reports from different sources including Al Arabia TV and the anti-terrorism Committee of the national Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) indicate that Qassem Soleimani chief of Iran’s terrorist Quds force has been seriously injured in Aleppo, Syria, Soleimani is said to be seriously injured along with two other personnel in an anti-tank rocket attack in mid-November, in the northern Syrian city.
Qassem Soleimani’s vehicle that was there for him to oversee an operation by IRGC ( Iran’ Revolutionary Guards Corps) and a number of hired forces was targeted by the Free Syrian Army severely injuring Soleimani. Unconfirmed reports add that first aid Suleimani received in Syria did not do him any good. Due to the severity of his wounds he was immediately transferred by an IRGC helicopter to Damascus and after receiving some primary treatment was transferred to a military hospital Tehran.
Soleimani, Tehran’s point man in both the Syrian and Iraq conflicts, has been a key figure in organizing Shiite militias in Iraq and Syria. Iran has not officially acknowledged sending troops to Syria, but says it has “advisers” on the ground assisting regime forces. Last month, a US official said some 2,000 Iranian or Iranian-backed forces were participating in the regime’s Aleppo operations. The increasing number of Iranian agents killed on the scene does not leave any ground for the regime of Iran to deny its meddling in Syria. Iran has certainly provided a financial support to Assad since the 2011 uprising, releasing billions of dollars of loans and credit for imports of oil and other commodities. Another important influence was setting up the locally-based militia units outside the regular army, which have acquired a reputation for racketeering and brutality. Iranian regime is currently providing military support to Bashar al-Assad’s regime, to help him against the Syrian resistance movement which has gained control of a vast part of the country in a conflict that has already gone for four years.
Western intelligence sources say Soleimani headed covert operations in Bosnia during the Balkan wars of the 1990s and in Central Asia. In 1996 he was operating in Afghanistan. Soleimani is now considered a key figure in the provision of Iran’s military activities in Syria and also in Iraq. The al-Baghdadia Television reported on July 24 that Muwafagh al-Rubayi, the former Iraqi National Security Advisor and an official of the National Unity Coalition led by Ammar al-Hakim, head of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution, admitted that Qassem Soleimani, Chief of the terrorist Quds Force of the Islamic Republican Guards Corps (IRGC) says the last word on Iraq and he is the ruler of Iraq who commands.
Soleimani’s al-Quds Force is responsible for all the Tehran regime’s clandestine terrorist operations abroad including assassinating enemies of the regime and providing funds, arms and training to the regional terrorist groups. a highly-regarded Syrian journalist with the London-based al-Hayat newspaper argues, “The more Iranians talk about national identity the more they promote sub-identities. The more they talk about fighting Isis, the more they provoke it. “Syria has been sold to the Iranians,” complains a resident of one of the capital “They control everything.” Some even describe Syria as “Iranian-occupied”. Last year 35% of all Syrian imports came from Iran. Now many government tenders are open only to Iranians.
Iran backed groups are also a nuisance for the habitants of Iraq. “People in Mosul are less enthusiastic about the entry of … the militias into the city now because the militias have been acting like those people in ISIS who looted the houses of Christians in Mosul,” said, a teacher from Mosul now displaced in Kirkuk. Prime Minister Haider al-Ebadi has called on security forces to halt looting and vandalism in Tikrit, promising a fund would be established to help residents return to Tikrit.
The U.S. Treasury Department has branded Qassem Soleimani and his entire military command terrorists. Nevertheless appeasement policies have given opportunities to Iranian regime to go ahead in Syria and other regional countries. Outgoing U.S. Army Chief of Staff Gen. Ray Odierno characterized the Iranian general in an exclusive exit interview with Fox News: ‘Qassem Suleimani is the one who has been exporting malign activities throughout the Middle East for some time now. He’s absolutely responsible for killing many Americans, in fact I would say the last two years I was there the majority of our casualties came from his surrogates, not Sunni or Al Qaeda.’
Soleimani’s Iraqi allies — such as the powerful Badr militia led by commander Hadi al-Ameri (pictured below) — have allegedly burned down Sunni villages and used power drills on enemies. Reuters correspondents reported on the gore after the victory in Tikrit, where they saw “a convoy of Shi’ite paramilitary fighters – the government’s partners in liberating the city – drag a corpse through the streets behind their car.”
Soleimani, is one of several Iranian officials targeted by a 2007 UN travel ban because of their alleged links to Iran’s nuclear or ballistic missile programs Soleimani, as head of the Iranian Quds Force is prohibited to travel, and any country that lets him transit or travel is defying the sanctions. Despite all this Soleimani got a warm welcome in Russia, a permanent member of the Security Council.
Soleimani went to Moscow with the message that Russian air strikes in Syria were imperative,. On July 24, one week before Secretary of State John Kerry testified to the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee and faced questions about the newly struck nuclear deal, Soleimani arrived in Moscow for meetings with Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and President Vladimir Putin. Meetings which were followed by Russian war Plaines bombarding houses of the Syrian people and bases of Syria’s Free Army.
With the strengthening and unification of the groups fighting the regime of Bashar Assad the supreme leader of Iranian regime Khamenei and the IRGC are facing consecutive defeats despite tapping all their military, economic and political resources in the war against the Syrian people and their revolution. More than 100 Iranian intruders are said to be killed in Syria in recent weeks including some high ranking IRGC members, a trend that is increasingly going on.
What exactly has happened to the commander of Iran’s terrorist Quds Force will come to light in the forthcoming days, but Soleimani’s injury was good news for the Syrian and other neighboring nations. Peace in the region will be achieved only by defeating and expelling Iranian regime’s terrorists, such as Quds force, from the regional countries.
