Who Was Qasem Soleimani?

This appeared in The Millennial Source

An overnight air raid by the US military has led to the death of Major General Qasem Soleimani, the leader of the Quds Force, a unit of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRCG), and a man thought by many to eventually succeed the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei as Iran’s Supreme Leader.

To some, Soleimani was a military hero, to others he was a supporter of terrorists and rogue actors throughout the world.

A revolutionary Iran

Soleimani was born in the Kerman Province of southeast Iran on March 11, 1957. Soleimani was the son of peasants and worked in construction before entering the military. Soleimani had said that he was influenced by the Islamic teachings of Hojjat al-Eslam Rezal Kamyab in 1976 and 1977. Kamyab was a revolutionary preacher with close ties to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, currently Iran’s Supreme Leader.

The Iranian Revolution broke out in 1978–79 and succeeded in overthrowing the US-backed Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, who had been in power since 1941. Former Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini was one of the key leaders of the revolution and helped establish the Islamic Republic of Iran following the Shah’s exile.