Background

Soleimani was born on March 11, 1957, in the village of Qalat Molk in the Rabor district of Kerman Province in southeastern Iran. His father was a farmer who died in 2017. His mother, Fatemeh died in 2013. He comes from a family of nine and has five sisters and one brother, Sohrab, who lived and worked with Soleimani in his youth. Sohrab Soleimani is a warden and former director-general of the Tehran Prisons Organization.

Education

In 1970, when Soleimani was 13 years old, he graduated from elementary school.

Career

Soleimani began his revolutionary activities against the Shah in Kerman in 1976. In 1979, after the Islamic Revolution, he joined the IRGC when it established a command council in the city of Kerman. Like many other IRGC commanders, he had no previous military experience. However, he showed himself capable and was quickly appointed to command positions, and according to a comrade at the time, he participated in a 45-day military course. His first military mission was in 1979 when he was sent to help suppress a Kurdish separatist uprising in the West Azerbaijan Province in northwestern Iran. He was stationed in the city of Mahabad, apparently as part of a company-size unit of irregulars sent to administer and defend the city. The unit helped suppress the Kurdish uprising and put an end to the bloody sectarian clashes between Azeris and Kurds.

From Mahabad Soleimani returned to Kerman and was appointed to administer the local IRGC garrison. When the Iran-Iraq War broke out in the fall of 1980 he was sent to the southern front where he commanded a force from Kerman. He rapidly climbed the ladder of command and by the time he was in his twenties he commanded the IRGC’s 41st Sarollah Division.

After the Iran-Iraq war, the division under Soleimani’s command was sent back to Kerman to fight drug smugglers operating along Iran’s southeastern border. His extensive experience in the Iran-Iraq War and his successful operations against the smugglers led the supreme leader to appoint him as commander of the Qods Force at the end of 1997. His appointment as commander of the Qods Force came at a time when Iraq no longer posed a significant threat to the Islamic regime in Tehran. The regime’s attention was drawn to events in Afghanistan and the rise of the Taliban. In addition to strengthening the Iranian forces along the Afghan border, Soleimani dealt with the challenge by using non-conventional military methods, and at the same time directed subversive activities on Afghan soil from Tajikistan and the areas controlled by the Northern Alliance.

In the years since Qasem Soleimani’s appointment as the Qods Force commander, it has expanded and developed. The numbers of its forces and missions in the Middle East and elsewhere have increased. In the meantime, Soleimani’s status in the Iranian leadership has risen. In January 2011, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei promoted him to the rank of major general, the highest rank in the IRGC and equal to the rank of IRGC commander.

Soleimani helped in formation of the National Defence Forces (NDF) in Syria. In October 2015, it was reported that he had been instrumental in devising during his visit to Moscow in July 2015 the Russian-Iranian-Syrian offensive in October 2015.

Soleimani, who assumed overall command in the Aleppo offensives of 2015, had a decisive impact on the theatre of operations and led to a strong advance in southern Aleppo with the government and allied forces re-capturing two military bases and dozens of towns and villages in a matter of weeks. There was also a series of major advances towards Kuweiris air-base to the north-east. By mid-November, the Syrian army and its allies had gained ground in southern areas of Aleppo Governorate, capturing numerous rebel strongholds. Soleimani was reported to have personally led the drive deep into the southern Aleppo countryside where many towns and villages fell into government hands. Soleimani reportedly commanded the Syrian Arab Army’s 4th Mechanized Division, Hezbollah, Harakat Al-Nujaba (Iraqi), Kata'ib Hezbollah (Iraqi), Liwaa Abu Fadl Al-Abbas (Iraqi), and Firqa Fatayyemoun (Afghan/Iranian volunteers).

In early February 2016, backed by Russian and Syrian air force airstrikes, the 4th Mechanized Division – in close coordination with Hezbollah, the National Defense Forces (NDF), Kata'eb Hezbollah, and Harakat Al-Nujaba – launched an offensive in Aleppo Governorate's northern countryside, which eventually broke the three-year siege of Nubl and Al-Zahraa and cut off rebel's main supply route from Turkey.

In late March 2017, Soleimani was seen in the northern Hama Governorate countryside, reportedly aiding Maj. Gen. Suheil al-Hassan in repelling a major rebel offensive.

Achievements

• 

  Qasem Soleimani went down in history as a commander of the Qods Force, the elite branch of Iran's Revolutionary Guards which conducts special operations outside Iran. Soleimani has been very influential in building up the military capacity of Lebanon's Hezbollah, shaping the post-war political landscape in Iraq, and turning around the Syrian civil war. He was the director of the Iranians who assisted Americans in the initial phase of the Afghanistan War through secret meetings with Ryan Crocker.
  
  He became one of Time Magazine's 100 Most Influential People in the World in 2017.

Politics

In 1999, Soleimani, along with other senior IRGC commanders, signed a letter to then-President Mohammad Khatami regarding the student protests in July. They wrote "Dear Mr. Khatami, how long do we have to shed tears, sorrow over the events, practice democracy by chaos and insults, and have revolutionary patience at the expense of sabotaging the system? Dear president, if you don't make a revolutionary decision and act according to your Islamic and national missions, tomorrow will be so late and irrecoverable that cannot be even imagined."

Iranian media reported in 2012 that he might be replaced as the commander of Quds Force in order to allow him to run in the 2013 presidential election. He reportedly refused to be nominated for the election. According to BBC, in 2015 a campaign started among conservative bloggers for Soleimani to stand for 2017 presidential election. In 2016, he was speculated as a possible candidate, however, in a statement published on 15 September 2016, he called speculations about his candidacy as "divisive reports by the enemies" and said he will "always remain a simple soldier serving Iran and the Islamic Revolution".

In the summer of 2018, the subject and Tehran exchanged public remarks related to Red Sea shipping with President Trump which heightened tensions between the two countries and their allies in the region.

Views

Quotations: "Dear General Petraeus, you should know that I, Qassem Suleimani, control the policy for Iran with respect to Iraq, Lebanon, Gaza and Afghanistan. And indeed, the ambassador in Baghdad is a Quds Force member. The individual who’s going to replace him is a Quds Force member."

"We’re not like the Americans. We don’t abandon our friends."

"The Syrian Army is useless! Give me one brigade of the Basij, and I could conquer the whole country."

"I entered the (Iran-Iraq) war on a fifteen-day mission, and ended up staying until the end. … We were all young and wanted to serve the revolution."

"When I see the children of the martyrs, I want to smell their scent, and I lose myself."

Personality

Soleimani is said to have a calm presence about him, carry himself "inconspicuously and rarely raises his voice", exhibiting "understated charisma". In Western sources, Qassem Suleimani's personality has been compared to the fictional characters Karla, Keyser Söze, and Scarlet Pimpernel.

Unlike other IRGC commanders, he usually does not appear in his official military clothing, even in the battlefield.

Physical Characteristics: Hair color - gray

Eyes color - brown

Quotes from others about the person

• Hadi Al-Ameri the head of the Badr Organization in Iraq says about him: "If Qasem Soleimani was not present in Iraq, Haidar al-Ibadi should form his cabinet out of Iraqi borders".

Interests

• Politicians

  Ali Khamenei

• Sport & Clubs

  Soleimani has Dan in karate and was a fitness trainer in his youth.

Connections

Soleimani has four children: two sons and two daughters.

Father:

Hassan Soleimani

(died October 31, 2017)

Mother:

Fatemeh Soleimani

Son:

Mohammadreza Soleimani

Daughter:

Zeinab Soleimani

Brother:

Sohrab Soleimani

He is a warden and former director general of the Tehran Prisons Organization.

Leader:

Ali Khamenei

He is a major and the second and current Supreme Leader of Iran, in office since 1989.

References

• Iranian Ways of War: From Cyrus the Great to Qassam Soleimani