Qassem Suleimani - Career and Activities

Career and Activities

On 22 September 1980, when Saddam Hussein invaded Iran, Soleimani was a lieutenant in the ranks of the IRGC. During the war, from 1980 to 1988, he was stationed at the south front, commanding the the Forty-First Tharallah Division. After the war, during the 1990s, he was an IRGC commander in Kerman. Through this region along the borders of Afghanistan ran drug trafficking to Turkey and onto Europe. But Soleimani's military experience helped him develop a successful strategy against drug trafficking.

In 1999, after the suppression of student unrest in Tehran, Soleiman, was one of 24 IRGC officers who wrote a letter to then President Mohammad Khatami expressing their concern that the suppression of free speech had involved the army.

The exact date of his appointment as commander of the IRGC Special Forces - the Quds Force ("Jerusalem Brigade") is not clear, but Ali Alfoneh cites it as between 10 September 1997 and 21 March 1998. He was considered one of the possible successors to the post of commander of the IRGC, when General Yahya Rahim Safavi left this post in 2007. In 2008, he led a group of Iranian investigators looking into the death of Imad Mughniyah. Suleimani helped arrange a ceasefire between the Iraqi Army and Mahdi Army in March 2008.

In 2009, a leaked report stated that General Soleimani met Christopher R. Hill and General Raymond T. Odierno (America’s two most senior officials in Baghdad at the time) in the office of Iraq’s president, Jalal Talabani (who has known General Soleimani for decades). Hill and General Odierno denied the occurrence of the meeting.

On 24 January 2011, Soleimani was promoted to major general by Ali Khamenei.

In February 2013, Riad Hijab, former Syrian premier who defected in August 2012, claimed that Soleimani was involving in the Syrian civil war in favor of the Assad regime. Soleimani has also been involving in the crisis in Iraq.