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US kills the powerful general iranian Soleimani in an attack with drones in the airport of Baghdad, The oil-Brent rises more than 4% after the attack on the general iranian Soleimani The great military enemy of the united STATES in the region (18/03/2015)
Born in 1957, in the midst of a family of poor peasants in a small village in the province of Kerman, in southeastern Iran, Qasem Soleimani left school after completing only his elementary education. Travelled to the capital of the province of the same name, to work as a bricklayer to pay the debts of his father. According later recalled, his politicisation took place in the second half of the decade of the seventies, when Iran was in full effervescence, pre-revolutionary against the shah Reza Pahlavi.
Soleimani became a member of the Revolutionary Guards in may 1979, just weeks after the military organization was to be established by ayatollah Khomeini in order to protect the newly proclaimed Islamic Republic. After a brief instruction period, his unit was deployed in Mahabad, in Kurdistan of iran, to repress a rebellion kurdish against the new State.
After the invasion of Iran by Iraq in September 1980, Soleimani fought in some of the most significant campaigns of the conflict, distinguishing himself by his courage. When the war ended in 1988, he was sent to the restive province of Sistan-Baluchistan, in southeastern Iran, where he led a successful campaign against the trafficking of opium from neighboring Afghanistan.
To the end of the nineties, Soleimani was placed at the head of the force al-Qods
At the end of the nineties, Soleimani was placed at the head of the force, The al-Quds, a special unit of the Revolutionary Guard was created during the Iran-Iraq war in order to carry out clandestine operations and offshore. In the eighties, units of such a force had been dispatched to Lebanon, where they were instrumental in the creation of the militia of the shi’a Hezbollah; and to Afghanistan, in support of groups opposed to the soviet invasion.
Upon taking command, Soleimani reorganized the force, The al-Quds to meet the threat of the taliban, fiercely antichiíes and sponsored by the two major regional rivals of Iran, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. After the attacks of September 11, 2001, the Islamic Republic provided information that helped the united States to plan their operations in Afghanistan. And the military coalition that supported the Northern Alliance, was key in the defeat of the taliban regime. However, its inclusion in the Axis of Evil by George W. Bush put an end to this brief period of cooperation with the country that Khomeini had been baptized as “the Great Satan”.
Close to the supreme leader Ali Khamenei, Soleimani was among the hawks of the iranian regime. So, in July of 1999, was one of the officers of the Revolutionary Guard who signed a letter-ultimatum addressed to president Mohammad Khatami demanding that reprimiese the rebellion student caused by the closure of a daily reformist by the judicial authorities, controlled by conservatives opposed to the reformist Khatami.
Close to the supreme leader Ali Khamenei, Soleimani was among the hawks of the iranian regime
on the other hand, as the leader of the force, The al-Quds, Soleimani was considered to be the maximum responsible of the strategy of the Islamic Republic to project its power on the region. In Lebanon, the general exerted his influence through Hezbollah, and in the summer of 2006 was in the country during the conflict with Israel. In Iraq, negotiated the deal among the leaders of the shi’a and kurds that allowed the ascension of Nuri al-Maliki to the presidency and supported several militia groups affiliated to shi’a radicals denounced for its sectarian violence.
More recently, the strength, The al-Quds and Hezbollah have played a critical role in the defense of the regime of the dictator syrian Bashar al-Assad and the defeat of the self-styled Islamic State in Syria and Iraq. In this last country, Soleimani participated actively in the popular mobilization against the terrorist group, in particular through militias proiraníes as the Brigades of Hezbollah of Jamal Yaafar Ibrahim, known as Abu Mahdi al-Mohandes The Engineer, who was also killed in the attack that ended the life of the general.
Ana Belén Soage is professor of Political Science at Suffolk University, and the EAE Business School. This article has been prepared by Public Agenda for THE COUNTRY.
