Qasem Soleimani: The Iranian General Who Kept Assad Alive

Qasem Soleimani was the operational architect of Iran's Syria strategy. When the Assad regime began losing the civil war in 2012-2013, it was Soleimani who flew to Moscow and Tehran to coordinate the response. He personally organized the deployment of Hezbollah — beginning with the Qusayr battle in 2013. He recruited and deployed the Fatemiyoun Division: Afghan Shia refugees and economic migrants promised money and residence permits in Iran, who became a significant fighting force in Syria. He organized the Iraqi Popular Mobilization Forces (Hashd al-Shaabi) to send fighters to Syria. He coordinated with Russian military commanders after the 2015 intervention. Soleimani was photographed in Syria multiple times — near Aleppo, near Latakia — in violation of a UN travel ban. He met regularly with Assad in Damascus. Without his coordination of multi-national Shia military forces, the Assad regime would not have survived 2013. He was killed in a US drone strike at Baghdad airport on January 3, 2020 alongside Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the commander of Iraq's Popular Mobilization Forces. Iran declared three days of national mourning.