Qassem Soleimani was the commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) from 1997 until January 3, 2020 when he was killed at the age of 62 by a U.S. airstrike in Baghdad, Iraq alongside the Popular Mobilization Force (PMF) Deputy Commander Abu Mahdi Al-Muhandis. Soleimani was considered to be the right-hand man of Ali Khamenei, the current supreme leader of Iran, as well as the second-most powerful person in Iran behind him.

The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) is a branch under the Iranian armed forces tasked with defending the Iranian regime against internal and external threats. It uses secret police methods against its opponents within Iran, and terrorist tactics against its enemies abroad. 

The IRGC is made up of 8 different units under its leadership, but the Quds Force’s commander effectively operates within a parallel structure and is solely accountable to Iran’s supreme leader.

The Quds Force is mainly responsible for extraterritorial operations. Under Soleimani’s leadership, it strengthened and/or forged new alliances with militias and authoritarian regimes across the Middle East to maintain and expand Iranian influence in the Middle East at any price, resulting in millions of casualties across the region. This network’s activities includes but is not limited to:

• Iraq: Forming a network of militias, many with political wings and/or connections. Most recently, these militias have been linked to most of the 600 casualties of the Tishreen Movement.

• Syria: Military, politically, and economically supporting the Assad regime, which has and continue to displace, detain, torture, and/or kill over 13.5 million innocent civilians.

• Lebanon: Leading the formation of Hezbollah in the 1980s, by training, advising, funding and equipping them, up to the present date.

• Yemen: Training, advising, funding and equipping the Houthis political and armed movement.