Qasem Soleimani
After a drone strike near Baghdad International Airport, the body of Qasem Soleimani was identified by a ring he wore on his finger. It was a small, quiet detail for an Iranian military officer whose name had been spoken with fear, awe and loathing across several countries.
How did a man of modest beginnings come to be described as one of the most influential figures in the Middle East? What did he actually do, and which of the claims made about him can be trusted? Why did his death, more than his life, send huge crowds into the streets and raise fears of a wider war? And what remains of him now that the strike is years behind us?
In the village of Qanat-e Malek, in Kerman Province, Soleimani was born on the 11th of March 1957 into the Soleimani tribe, an ethnic Lur tribe. At 13 he left school and moved to the city of Kerman, where he took a construction job to help repay his father's farming debts. In 1975 he began working as a contractor for the Kerman Water Organization.
Away from work, he trained with weights in local gyms. These were athletic clubs built around the traditional idea of chivalry, known as javānmardi. He became proficient in karate and worked for a time as a fitness coach. He also attended the sermons of Hojjat Kamyab, a preacher and protégé of Ali Khamenei, who by Soleimani's account urged him toward "revolutionary activities".
In 1979 the Iranian Revolution overthrew the Shah and brought Ayatollah Khomeini to power. Soleimani joined the Revolutionary Guard, known as the IRGC, that same year. His training was reportedly minimal, yet he rose fast. Early on, he helped stop a Kurdish uprising in northwestern Iran. That time in Iranian Kurdistan later helped him when he advised the Peshmerga against Saddam Hussein.
On the 22nd of September 1980, Saddam Hussein invaded Iran and began the Iran-Iraq War, which lasted until 1988. Soleimani led a company of men from Kerman whom he had gathered and trained himself. He won a name for bravery and rose through the ranks by helping retake land that Iraq had occupied. While still in his 20s, he was commanding the 41st Tharallah Division, and he took part in most of the war's major operations, mostly on the southern front.
Operation Tariq-ol-Qods left him seriously injured. In a 1990 interview, he called Operation Fath-ol-Mobin "the best" operation he joined, and "very memorable" for its difficulty and its good outcome. He also helped lead irregular warfare missions deep inside Iraq for the Ramadan Headquarters. Through that work he built ties with Kurdish Iraqi leaders and with the Shia Badr Organization, both opposed to Saddam.
On the 17th of July 1985, Soleimani objected to the IRGC leadership's plan to send forces to two islands in the western Arvand Rud, on the Shatt al-Arab River. In 1987, Iraqi artillery shelled a division he commanded with chemical weapons.
After the war, in the 1990s, he commanded the IRGC in Kerman Province. Afghan-grown opium travels through that region to Turkey and then on to Europe, and his military experience earned him a name as an effective fighter against drug trafficking. In 1992 he made the Hajj to Mecca and Medina with Commander Mahmood Khaleqi. By the end of the decade, a far larger command was waiting for him.
Dexter Filkins dates Soleimani's appointment as head of the Quds Force to 1998. Ali Alfoneh instead places it between the 10th of September 1997 and the 21st of March 1998. The force takes its name from the Persian word for Jerusalem. Within the Revolutionary Guard, it handles mainly clandestine operations and military action beyond Iran's borders. Soon after taking charge, Soleimani strengthened its bond with Hezbollah, sending operatives to help push Israel out of Southern Lebanon.
Labels followed him everywhere. A former CIA operative who ran clandestine operations called him "the single most powerful operative in the Middle East today". Others spoke of a "genius of asymmetric warfare". Yossi Cohen, a former Mossad director, said Soleimani's strategies had "personally tightened a noose around Israel's neck". General David Petraeus, then the American commander in Iraq, said Soleimani claimed in 2008 to be personally responsible for Iran's Guard policy in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, southern Lebanon and Gaza.
On the 24th of January 2011, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei promoted him to major general. Khamenei called him a "living martyr" and helped him financially. Some analysts later saw Soleimani as Khamenei's right-hand man and the second most powerful person in Iran.
A 2024 analysis by Jaber Rajabi for The Washington Institute for Near East Policy argued that Soleimani managed allied militias through personal networks and direct ties to their commanders. His successor, Esmail Qaani, lacked that same personal authority, Rajabi wrote.
In July 1999, Soleimani and other senior Guard commanders signed a letter to President Mohammad Khatami about the student protests in Tehran. It warned that the military would suppress the protests if he did not, and hinted that he could be deposed. The letter said that otherwise "tomorrow will be so late and irrecoverable that cannot be even imagined." Years later, the former IRGC commander Mohammad Ali Jafari said Soleimani also stepped in during the 2009 protests to "control the insecurity and riots".
Iranian media reported in 2012 that he might leave the Quds Force to run in the 2013 presidential election, but he reportedly refused. In 2015, conservative bloggers began a campaign for him to stand in 2017. On the 15th of September 2016, he dismissed the talk as "divisive reports by the enemies" and said he would "always remain a simple soldier serving Iran and the Islamic Revolution".
Sanctions piled up around him. The United States designated him a terrorist in 2005. In March 2007, United Nations Security Council Resolution 1747 named him among sanctioned Iranians. On the 18th of May 2011, the United States sanctioned him alongside Syrian president Bashar al-Assad over alleged material support for the Syrian government. On the 24th of June 2011, the European Union listed him with Mohammad Ali Jafari and Hossein Taeb for helping Syria suppress protests. Switzerland followed in September 2011. On the 13th of November 2018, the United States sanctioned an Iraqi military leader, Shibl Muhsin 'Ubayd Al-Zaydi, and others said to act on his behalf. That summer, Soleimani and Tehran had already traded public remarks with President Donald Trump over Red Sea shipping, raising tension between the two countries.
On the 11th of January 2007, American forces raided the Iranian Liaison Office in Erbil, believing that Mohammad Ali Jafari and Soleimani were inside. They detained five Iranians who carried diplomatic passports.
Nine days later, on the 20th of January, attackers in American uniforms, carrying American weapons, infiltrated the Karbala Provincial Joint Coordination Headquarters. They killed five American soldiers in what was reported as "perhaps the boldest and most sophisticated" attack of the Iraq War. Filkins named the group as Asa'ib Ahl al-Haq, working with an Iran-trained Hezbollah commander, Ali Musa Daqduq. Major General Kevin Bergner of the Defense Department claimed the Quds Force knew of the attack and planned it. The same day, 13 American soldiers died in a helicopter crash and seven more were killed elsewhere in Iraq. It was the third worst day for American troops in the whole war.
The scale of Iran's role in killing Americans is hotly disputed. The Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, an Israeli think tank, claimed Soleimani directed a network of insurgent groups that killed over a thousand Americans. A Central Command spokesperson said more than 500 American soldiers had died from explosively formed penetrators and other Iranian weapons. The Pentagon later revised that figure down to 196. The Washington Post's Alex Horton reported that the Quds Force gave militants training and logistics for those weapons. Critics noted that Iran was not necessarily the sole supplier. A 2006 report in Common Dreams said the American command knew of domestic production for years, and that the Mahdi Army may have learned the technology from Hezbollah rather than Iran.
In Iraq's politics, Soleimani was believed to have strongly shaped the makeup of the government, notably by backing Nuri al-Maliki's election. In March 2008, he helped arrange a ceasefire between the Iraqi Army and the Mahdi Army. In 2009, The Economist reported, from a leaked document, that Christopher R. Hill and General Raymond T. Odierno had met him in the office of President Jalal Talabani. It withdrew the story after both men denied it. Masoud Barzani, leader of the Kurdistan Democratic Party, claimed Soleimani saw the American invasion of Iraq as a "great victory" for Iran.
The fight against ISIL gave him a more visible role. In 2014, he was in the town of Amirli, where, the Los Angeles Times said, an unusual partnership of Iraqi and Kurdish soldiers, Iranian-backed Shia militias and American warplanes beat back the militants. A senior Iraqi official told the BBC that after Mosul fell, Iran's rapid reaction, not American bombing, prevented a wider collapse. At Jurf Al Sakhar he was reportedly "present on the battlefield". Shia militia commanders called him "fearless" and noted that he never wore a flak jacket, even at the front. In November 2014, forces under his command drove ISIL out of Jalawla and Saadia in Diyala Governorate.
Tikrit, the largest and most important city between Baghdad and Mosul, had fallen to ISIL in 2014. The group's massacre at Camp Speicher killed 1,600-1,700 Iraqi Army cadets and soldiers. After months of preparation, the offensive to encircle the city began in early March 2015, with Soleimani playing an integral part in the planning. In 2016, photos from a Popular Mobilization Forces source showed him at a commanders' meeting about the Battle of Fallujah.
CIA chief Mike Pompeo said he sent Soleimani and other Iranian leaders a letter holding them responsible for any attack on American interests by forces under their control. Mohammad Mohammadi Golpayegani, an aide to Iran's supreme leader, said Soleimani brushed it aside during the Abu Kamal offensive against ISIL with the words: "I will not take your letter nor read it and I have nothing to say to these people."
The killing of Iranian diplomats in Afghanistan on the 8th of August 1998, followed by the Taliban's Mazar-i-Sharif massacre of Hazara Shias, pushed Iran and the Taliban-ruled emirate toward crisis. Yahya Rahim Safavi, then commander-in-chief of the Guard, wanted Iran to invade and topple the Taliban. Soleimani persuaded Khamenei that "strategic patience" would pay off better. He tripled Iranian support for the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance, and his Quds Force ran a secret training camp for its fighters in Tajikistan.
After the September 11 attacks in 2001, Ryan Crocker, a senior State Department official, flew to Geneva to meet Iranian diplomats working under Soleimani's leadership. The goal was to cooperate against the Taliban. When the United States invaded Afghanistan in October 2001, the Quds Force worked alongside American forces. It led an uprising in Herat, joined by Hazaras and the Northern Alliance, that freed the city before American troops arrived. That cooperation helped pick air-strike targets and capture key al-Qaeda operatives. It ended in January 2002, when President George W. Bush named Iran as part of the "axis of evil" in his State of the Union address. The British author Adrian Levy has claimed that Soleimani sheltered al-Qaeda fighters and senior members of its military council.
Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah said Soleimani first came to Lebanon in 1998. On the 12th of July 2006, Hezbollah fighters under Imad Mughniyeh and Khalid Bazzi raided across the border, killing three Israeli soldiers and taking two hostages. Israel invaded Lebanon in response. Soleimani was in Damascus that day, but he went to Beirut under heavy Israeli bombing. He stayed in the Dahieh district for the rest of the war with Nasrallah and Mughniyeh, forming a three-man command over all of Hezbollah's operations. In an interview aired in October 2019, he said he had been in Lebanon to manage the conflict. On the 29th of January 2015, he laid wreaths in Beirut on the graves of slain Hezbollah members, including Jihad Mughniyah.
The Gaza links are alleged rather than proven. According to the Lebanese militant Anis al-Naqqash, Soleimani and Mughniyeh oversaw weapons smuggling to Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad during the Second Intifada. After Israel and Egypt imposed the 2007 blockade of Gaza, the Quds Force was alleged to have supported tunnel construction there. In 2021, Ahmad Abd al-Hadi, a senior Hamas representative in Lebanon, said: "Today there are 360 kilometers of tunnels in Gaza." He credited the idea to Mughniyeh and to "Hajj Qasem Soleimani". The American Enterprise Institute adds that Soleimani and other Iranian officials worked with Hamas leaders against the Israeli army in the 2008-2009 Gaza War.
Riad Hijab, a former Syrian prime minister who deserted in August 2012, was among the sources calling Soleimani one of the strongest backers of Bashar al-Assad. Ali Abdullah Ayyoub, then Syria's defense minister, said Soleimani helped plan and carry out the siege of Baba Amr during the siege of Homs between 2011 and 2014. In the second half of 2012, Iran grew deeply worried that Assad could not beat the opposition, and Soleimani took personal control of Iran's intervention.
He reportedly ran the war from a base in Damascus, where a Lebanese Hezbollah commander, an Iraqi Shia militia coordinator, and Syrian and Iranian officers worked together. A Middle Eastern security official told Filkins that thousands of Quds Force members and Iraqi Shia militiamen were spread across the whole country. The retaking of Qusayr in May 2013 was, in the words of former CIA officer John Maguire, "orchestrated" by Soleimani. In 2013 he also helped found the National Defence Forces to formalize the pro-Assad coalition. Brigadier General Hossein Hamadani helped run irregular militias that Soleimani hoped would keep fighting if Assad fell.
In 2015, ISIL and rebel groups had taken large areas from Assad's forces. Soleimani began gathering support to reverse those losses and was reportedly the main architect of a joint intervention that brought Russia in as a new partner. Reuters reported that at a meeting in Moscow in July, he unfurled a map of Syria and showed his Russian hosts how a string of defeats could become a victory with Russian help. Khamenei also sent a senior envoy to Vladimir Putin. Putin reportedly answered: "Okay we will intervene. Send Qassem Soleimani." The Russian intervention reshaped the war and forged a new alliance between Iran and Russia.
Soleimani was then reported to be personally leading a drive deep into the southern Aleppo countryside. Government and allied forces retook two military bases and dozens of towns and villages within weeks. By mid-November, they had gained ground across the south of Aleppo Governorate. He reportedly commanded the Syrian Arab Army's 4th Mechanized Division along with Hezbollah and several Iraqi and Afghan-Iranian militias. In early February 2016, backed by Russian and Syrian air strikes, that division and its partners launched an offensive in the northern Aleppo countryside. It broke the three-year siege of Nubl and Al-Zahraa and cut the rebels' main supply route from Turkey.
Photographs that emerged in December 2016 placed him at the Citadel of Aleppo, though their exact date is unknown. In late March 2017, he was seen in the northern Hama countryside, reportedly helping Major General Suheil al-Hassan repel a major rebel offensive.
Around one in the morning local time on the 3rd of January 2020, a drone strike hit near Baghdad International Airport. Soleimani had just stepped off a plane arriving from Lebanon or Syria and was on his way to meet Iraqi Prime Minister Adil Abdul-Mahdi. The prime minister said Soleimani was bringing Iran's reply to a message Iraq had passed along for Saudi Arabia, aimed at easing regional tensions. Also killed were four members of the Popular Mobilization Forces, including its former head and Iraqi military commander, Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis.
Accounts of the drones' origin conflict. One Iraqi network claimed they took off from Kuwait, which Kuwait's armed forces denied. Another claimed a Qatari base, Al Udeid. Iraqi parliamentarian Ahmed al-Asadi said three American drones flew over Baghdad for 20 hours from Ain al-Assad base. Radio Farda, citing American media, said they were MQ-9 Reapers. Senior State Department officials compared the strike to Operation Vengeance, when American pilots shot down the plane carrying Japanese Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto.
CNBC reported that the United States had pursued Soleimani for decades. Trump voiced a wish to target him in a 2017 meeting with National Security Adviser H. R. McMaster. Five officials told NBC News that Trump authorized the killing in June 2019, backed by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. Anonymous officials told The New York Times that Trump first chose to strike the Shia militia, then picked the most extreme option after watching television footage of the attack on the American embassy in Baghdad.
The stated reasons shifted. The Defense Department said Soleimani had been planning further attacks on American diplomats and troops, and had approved the embassy attacks after American air strikes in Iraq and Syria on the 29th of December 2019. Defense Secretary Mark Esper said he was expected to mastermind an attack within days. Trump told Fox News that four embassies had been targeted, but Pompeo said it was not known where or when. Reports also cited the death of an Iraqi-American contractor in a December 2019 rocket attack, which sits awkwardly with the claim of an imminent plot.
The strike had neither congressional approval nor Iraqi consent. In June 2020, an Iranian prosecutor said Trump and 35 others faced murder and terrorism charges, and an Iraqi court issued a warrant for Trump on a charge of premeditated murder. On the 14th of February 2020, the administration told Congress the strike was authorized under the Constitution and the 2002 Authorization of Use of Military Force Against Iraq. House Foreign Affairs Chairman Eliot Engel replied that the 2002 law had been passed to deal with Saddam Hussein.
Agnès Callamard, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial killings, told the Human Rights Council in July 2020 that the strike could be justified only by an imminent threat. "Absent an actual imminent threat to life, the course of action taken by the U.S. was unlawful," she wrote. She also warned that this was the first targeted drone killing of a senior foreign government official on the territory of a third country, and that states might now copy it.
Within hours, analysts Ali Vaez and Iain King compared the killing to the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, and the hashtags #Ferdinand and #WWIII trended on Twitter. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov called it flatly illegal. UK Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab described it as self-defence. ISIL praised it, according to the BBC's Jeremy Bowen. Democrats, including top 2020 presidential candidates, condemned it as risking retaliation or war.
On the 4th of January, thousands of mourners filled a funeral procession in Baghdad that began at the Al-Kadhimiya Mosque. His remains then went to the Shia holy cities of Karbala and Najaf, and on the 5th to Ahvaz and Mashhad. On the 6th, in Tehran, the Times of Israel estimated "more than 10 million" people packed the streets. Khamenei led the prayer for the dead and wept in front of the flag-draped coffins. Soleimani's daughter Zeinab warned that his death would bring darker days for the United States and Israel. Esmail Qaani, named Quds Force commander hours after the killing, said God was "the main avenger".
On the 7th of January, a stampede at the burial procession in Kerman, attended by hundreds of thousands, killed 56 people and injured 212. That day, Iran's Supreme National Security Council announced a document with 13 revenge scenarios. The next day, Iran fired ballistic missiles at two American bases in Iraq. No casualties were reported, but 110 troops suffered traumatic brain injuries. Iranian officials and some Western analysts suggested the strike was designed to avoid casualties and a forceful American response. After the attack on Ayn al-Asad airbase, the IRGC shot down Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752 shortly after takeoff. On the 20th of July 2020, Iranian state television reported the execution of Mahmoud Mousavi Majd for passing information about Soleimani and the Quds Force to the United States and Israel.
By October 2019, a poll with IranPoll and the University of Maryland found 82% of Iranians viewed him favorably and 59% very favorably. Officials called him Haji Qassem. Qais Khazali, commander of Asa'ib Ahl al-Haq, told Frontline in 2017 that Soleimani was humble and politically intelligent. Miriam Berger of The Washington Post wrote that he was "both revered and reviled". After his death, Iranian state television and many new social media accounts pushed heroic images of a noble warrior. The chef Navab Ebrahimi was reportedly arrested for posting a recipe for Persian cutlets on the third anniversary, since opponents mockingly nicknamed Soleimani "Kotelt", meaning cutlet.
His image became part of the Islamic Republic's martyrdom culture, on billboards, monuments and murals. Tehran's Resalat Expressway was renamed in his honor. In August 2020, Iran unveiled a ballistic missile named Martyr Haj Qasem. The "Shahid Soleimani Plan" was the name given to Iran's COVID-19 screening project, which reached more than 17 million households. During the Mahsa protests, angry demonstrators burned and crushed his pictures and statues. On the 2nd of October 2023, the AFC called off a match between Sepahan and Al-Ittihad after Al-Ittihad refused to play while a bust of Soleimani stood in the stadium.
On the 3rd of January 2024, an explosion near a cemetery in Kerman, on the fourth anniversary, killed about 89 people and wounded 284. ISIS claimed the attack. A year later, Iran held a rally for the fifth anniversary. His popularity there has reportedly grown since the fall of the Assad regime in Syria, as Qaani has seemed unable to match his effectiveness. In 2023, Lantern Publications issued an autobiography of his early years, titled I Feared Nothing.
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Common questions
Who was Qasem Soleimani?
Qasem Soleimani was an Iranian military officer in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, born on the 11th of March 1957. He commanded the Quds Force from 1998 until he was killed in 2020.
What was the Quds Force that Qasem Soleimani commanded?
The Quds Force is the part of the Revolutionary Guard responsible mainly for clandestine operations and military action outside Iran. Its name comes from the Persian word for Jerusalem.
How did Qasem Soleimani die?
Qasem Soleimani was killed by a United States drone strike near Baghdad International Airport on the 3rd of January 2020. Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis and three other Popular Mobilization Forces members also died, and Soleimani's body was identified by a ring.
Why did the United States kill Qasem Soleimani?
Trump administration officials said Soleimani had been planning further attacks on American diplomats and troops and had approved attacks on the American embassy in Baghdad. Reports said Trump authorized the killing in June 2019, and the stated justifications shifted over time.
Was the killing of Qasem Soleimani legal?
The legality is disputed. The Trump administration cited the Constitution and the 2002 Authorization of Use of Military Force Against Iraq, while UN Special Rapporteur Agnès Callamard concluded in July 2020 that the strike was unlawful absent an imminent threat.
How did Iran respond to the death of Qasem Soleimani?
On the 8th of January 2020, Iran fired ballistic missiles at two American bases in Iraq, causing no reported casualties but 110 traumatic brain injuries. Huge crowds also attended his funeral in Tehran on the 6th of January, led in prayer by Ali Khamenei.
What role did Qasem Soleimani play in the Syrian civil war?
In the second half of 2012, Soleimani took personal control of Iran's intervention in support of Bashar al-Assad. In July 2015, he reportedly went to Moscow to explain a map of Syria to Russian hosts, helping to plan Russia's military intervention.
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- 159Iraq Militia Officials, Iran's Quds Force Head Killed in U.S. Drone StrikeTom O'Connor et al. — 2 January 2020
- 160Thousands mourn assassinated Iranian generalBBC News — 4 January 2020
- 163Opinion | Trump was right to kill Iranian general Qassem SoleimaniNBC News — 7 January 2020
- 164NewsDoubts grow over US case for Suleimani assassination as Iran urges revengeMartin Chulov et al. — 5 January 2020
- 165NewsSenior State Department Officials on the Situation in IraqOffice of the Spokesperson — 3 January 2020
- 166NewsAs Tensions With Iran Escalated, Trump Opted for Most Extreme MeasureHelene Cooper et al. — 4 January 2020
- 170US kills Iran's most powerful general in Baghdad airstrike2 January 2020
- 171PM: Iran's Soleimani was in Iraq to discuss relations with Saudi6 January 2020
- 172NewsIraqi Parliament Votes in Favor of Expelling U.S. TroopsIsabel Coles — 5 January 2020
- 174Qassem Soleimani airstrike: Ring from corpse identified Iran's top generalYaron Steinbuch — New York Post — 3 January 2020
- 177NewsSoleimani's Deputy Esmail Ghaani Named Iran's Quds Force Chief3 January 2020
- 182Trump authorized Soleimani's killing 7 months ago, with conditionsNBC News — 13 January 2020
- 183Trump approved Soleimani's killing last June: reportRebecca Klar — 13 January 2020
- 184NewsQasem Soleimani: Why kill him now and what happens next?Jonathan Marcus — BBC News — 3 January 2020
- 185Top Iranian general killed in US airstrike in Baghdad, Pentagon confirmsCNBC — 2 January 2020
- 186Statement by the Department of DefenseUnited States Department of Defense — 2 January 2020
- 189NewsQasem Soleimani: Trump says US killed 'a monster'.BBC News — 7 January 2020
- 191NewsQasem Soleimani: Iran seeks Trump's arrest over killing of generalBBC News — 29 June 2020
- 195NewsTimeline of Trump's shifting justifications for Soleimani killingAl Jazeera — 18 February 2020
- 197US denies latest airstrikes targeting Iraqi militia in BaghdadMario Koran et al.
- 198Was it legal for Donald Trump to order the killing of a top Iranian general?NBC News — 4 January 2020
- 199Was Trump's order to assassinate Iran's Qassem Soleimani legal?William Roberts — Al Jazeera
- 200Russia Says Iran General's Killing 'Illegal'Kenneth Rapoza
- 202World reacts to killing of Iran's Qassem Soleimani, 3 January 2020, Euronews
- 204Franz Ferdinand and #WWIII: Why are these words trending?Newsbeat — BBC News — 3 January 2020
- 206NewsDemocratic presidential candidates condemn killing of Iran general3 January 2020
- 207NewsQasem Soleimani: Why his killing is good news for IS jihadistsJeremy Bowen — BBC News — 10 January 2020
- 208NewsQasem Soleimani: PM 'will not lament' Iranian general's death.BBC News — 6 January 2020
- 209Instagram says it's removing posts supporting Soleimani to comply with US sanctionsDonie O'Sullivan et al. — CNN — 11 January 2020
- 210In the wake of Iran's shadow commander10 January 2020
- 212Iranian American activist outraged by 'propaganda machine' glorifying SoleimaniAl Arabiya — 8 January 2020
- 213Iran's 'Unforgivable Mistake' Downing Jet Elicits Furor At Home And AbroadColin Dwyer — 11 January 2020
- 214NewsIran plane crash: Protesters condemn 'lies' on downed jetBBC News — 11 January 2020
- 216Hamas leader Haniyeh attends Soleimani's funeral in Iran6 January 2020
- 217Hamas leader attends Soleimani's funeral in Iran6 January 2020
- 219طبق وصیتنامه، سنگ مزار سردار سلیمانی را آماده خواهیم کرد4 January 2020
- 221NewsThousands march in Baghdad funeral procession for Qassem SuleimaniAmy O'Brien — 4 January 2020
- 222NewsQassem Suleimani: chants of 'death to America' at Baghdad funeralMichael Safi — 4 January 2020
- 223'You never let us down': Thousands mourn Soleimani in BaghdadArwa Ibrahim — Al Jazeera
- 224Thousands mourn Soleimani in Iran amid new threats from TrumpNBC News — 5 January 2020
- 228NewsSoleimani: Huge crowds pack Tehran for commander's funeralBBC News — 6 January 2020
- 229NewsMourners flood Tehran as calls for revenge over Soleimani growAl Jazeera — 6 January 2020
- 230Here's Everything You Need to Know About the Situation in Iran Right NowDavid Gilbert — 6 January 2020
- 231NewsCrowds swarm Tehran to mourn slain Iran military leader SoleimaniCNN — 6 January 2020
- 232NewsIran: dozens dead in stampede at Suleimani burial procession – state TVMichael Safi — 7 January 2020
- 234Iran targets US troops with missile strikesBBC News — 8 January 2020
- 236More than 100 U.S. troops diagnosed with brain injuries from Iran attack – officialsIdrees Ali — 10 February 2020
- 237NewsIraqi leader faces tricky balancing act as main allies confront one another8 January 2020
- 238NewsPentagon now says 64 US troops suffered traumatic brain injuries in Iran strike30 January 2020
- 239NewsIran crisis: Commander says more air strikes were planned against USBBC News — 9 January 2020
- 240NewsTrump Backs Away From Further Military Conflict With IranPeter Baker — 8 January 2020
- 241Iran's assault on US bases in Iraq might satisfy both sidesMichael Safi — 8 January 2020
- 244NewsIran plane crash: What we know about flight PS7529 January 2020
- 245NewsNew report on destruction of Flight PS752 accuses Iran of using civilian passengers as human shieldsAshley Burke et al. — 24 November 2021
- 246NewsIran executes man convicted of spying on U.S.-slain general19 July 2020
- 247NewsCharlie Kirk: the latest in a long line of political martyrs, from left and rightNatasha Lindstaedt — 15 October 2025
- 249NewsChanting anti-US slogans, Iraqi militia supporters mark year since Soleimani's killingMaher Nazeh — 3 January 2021
- 261NewsTwin bomb blasts near Iran general Qasem Soleimani's tomb kill 73 – state TV3 January 2024
- 264The war on ISIS is getting weird in Iraq25 March 2015
- 265JournalGen. Soleimani: A new brand of Iranian hero for nationalist timesScott Peterson — 15 February 2016
- 267Iranian Animation Depicts Battle With U.S. Forces in Gulf13 March 2017
- 270Iran's 45th Anniversary Celebrates Soleimani2024-02-12
- 271NewsSANA13 January 2020
- 272Iran unveils missiles with increased range20 August 2020
- 273رونمایی از موشک بالستیک شهید حاج قاسم و موشک کروز شهید ابومهدی20 August 2020
- 282Iranian Statue of Slain Commander Soleimani Burned6 January 2022
- 283Iranians Set Soleimani's Photos Ablaze On His Death Anniversary10 August 2023
- 285Saudi-Iran Football Spat Underscores Challenges to RapprochementBloomberg — 3 October 2023
- 289BookThe Shadow Commander: Soleimani, the US, and Iran's Global AmbitionsArash Azizi — Oneworld Publications — 2020