Top Iranian Commander

Mouood: Top Iranian Commander – General Soleimani’s Manner, Resistance Role Model for World

TEHRAN (FNA) – Chief of Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces Major General Mohammad Hossein Baqeri described the martyred anti-terror commander, Lieutenant General Qassem Soleimani, as a role model for the people of Iran, the region and the world.

Martyr Top Iranian Commander

Looking at the attitudes, spirits, and memos of Martyr Lieutenant General Qassem Soleimani will be a great lesson for all people and the next generations in Iran and other countries, General Baqeri told reporters after participation in a ceremony to commemorate the second anniversary of General Soleimani’s martyrdom in the Southern city of Kerman on Tuesday.

He added that the way of living of the great martyr, including his private life, spiritual and religious manner, social and military management, as well as his assistance to ordinary people and his steadfastness when it came to standing against arrogant powers and the Zionists, is a unique role model not only in Iran but also in other states of the region and the whole world.

There are many secrets about his efforts, which had not been uttered by his comrades and friends, but they have started disclosing his attitude, which has been welcomed by Iranian youths, because the hidden lessons of his manners guarantee continuity of the Islamic Revolution, Islam, and ethics in Iran and the region, General Baqeri noted.

Former Commander of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) Quds Force Lieutenant General Qassem Soleimani, his Iraqi trenchmate Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the second-in-command of Iraq’s PMU, and ten of their deputies were martyred by an armed drone strike as their convoy left Baghdad International Airport on January 3, 2020. The attack was ordered by then US President Donald Trump.

To date, Iran’s chief civilian prosecutor has indicted tens of individuals in connection with the assassination, among them former president Trump, the head of US Central Command General Kenneth McKenzie Jr., and former US Secretaries of State and Defense Mike Pompeo and Mark Esper.

The file remains open to the further addition of individuals that Tehran determines to have played a role in the killing.

Both commanders were highly popular because of their key role in fighting against the ISIL terrorist group in the region, particularly in Iraq and Syria.

Back in January 2020, two days after the assassination, the Iraqi parliament passed a law requiring the Iraqi government to end the presence of the US-led foreign forces in the Arab country.

Last year, Baghdad and Washington reached an agreement on ending the presence of all US combat troops in Iraq by the end of 2021.

The US military declared the end of its combat mission in Iraq this month, but resistance forces remain bent on expelling all American forces, including those who have stayed in the country on the pretext of training Iraqi forces or playing an advisory role.

Since the assassination, Iraqi resistance forces have ramped up pressure on the US military to leave their country, targeting American bases and forces on numerous occasions, at one point pushing the Americans to ask them to “just leave us alone”.

Iran and Iraq in a joint statement last month underlined their determination to identify, prosecute and punish the culprits behind the assassination of General Soleimani and al-Muhandis.

Iran and Iraq have issued a joint statement on an investigation into the “criminal and terrorist” assassination by the US of top anti-terror commanders of the two countries in Baghdad in 2020, Deputy Head of Iran’s Judiciary for international affairs and secretary general of the country’s High Council for Human Rights Kazzem Qaribabadi said.

He added that the statement was issued during the second session of a joint Iran-Iraq committee investigating the murder of General Soleimani and al-Muhandis.

Qaribabadi said that in the statement, Iran and Iraq stressed that the assassinations were a “violation of the rules of international law, including relevant international conventions on the fight against terrorism”.