{"id":213236,"date":"2020-01-05T22:00:48","date_gmt":"2020-01-05T22:00:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ncr-iran.org\/en\/?p=213236"},"modified":"2023-02-15T15:09:27","modified_gmt":"2023-02-15T14:09:27","slug":"who-was-the-vicious-criminal-qassem-soleimani","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ncr-iran.org\/en\/news\/terrorism-a-fundamentalism\/who-was-the-vicious-criminal-qassem-soleimani\/","title":{"rendered":"Who Was the Vicious Criminal Qassem Soleimani"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"who_was_the_vicious_criminal_qassem_soleimani\"
In addition to the many crimes inside Iran, Qassem Soleimani was responsible for many terrorist operations outside Iran. Including the killing of MEK members in Iraq and the murder of Iraqi citizens.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

On January 2, 2020, a U.S.-led airstrike targeted a convoy exiting the Baghdad International Airport, killing\u00a0Qassem Soleimani<\/a>, the notorious commander of Iran\u2019s terrorist Quds Force. Ali Khamenei, the Iranian regime\u2019s supreme leader, declared three days of mourning for\u00a0Soleimani\u2019s death<\/a> and personally attended an emergency meeting of the Supreme National Security Council.<\/p>\n

The overwhelming majority of Iranians despised Soleimani, an infamous symbol of the regime\u2019s intimidation and murder, for his crimes against the Iranian people and throughout the region. The Iranian people and Iraqi protesters who have been calling for Soleimani\u2019s expulsion from Iraq for some time welcomed his death as a sign of the waning of the regime\u2019s control over their country.<\/p>\n

Soleimani, carrying the rank of major general, was Khamenei\u2019s hatchet man and a hated figure. During uprisings in Iran in 2018 and 2019, protesters tore up and torched his posters in different cities.<\/p>\n

Qassem Soleimani was born on March 11, 1957, in a village near the town of Baft, in the southeastern province of Kerman. He did not finish his elementary education. He worked as an unskilled construction laborer while he was very young. He did not receive any military training. Yet he rose to the top of the IRGC command because of his ruthlessness and loyalty to the regime\u2019s Supreme Leader.<\/p>\n

In 1998, Soleimani was appointed as the commander of the terrorist Quds Force, the extraterritorial arm of\u00a0the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC)<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The terrorist Quds force\u00a0is a military body founded shortly after the 1979 revolution with the sole purpose of suppressing domestic opposition and waging terrorist wars beyond Iran\u2019s borders.<\/p>\n

The mandate of the IRGC is to expand the fundamentalist ideology of the mullahs through killings, terrorist acts, and hostage-taking.<\/p>\n

The Quds Force plays a very special role in the IRGC and is tasked with orchestrating the regime\u2019s meddling in countries of the Middle East region, from Iraq to Syria and Yemen, and as far as the African continent.<\/p>\n

Although the Quds Force is assigned missions outside Iran, Soleimani, as a senior member of the IRGC\u2019s high command, was also a major contributor to the regime\u2019s repressive apparatus inside Iran.<\/p>\n

In July 1999, at the height of student protests, he signed a letter along with other IRGC commanders, warning then-President Mohammad Khatami that if he did not put down the revolt, the IRGC would intervene.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur patience has run out,\u201d Soleimani, along with other IRGC Generals wrote. The police crushed the demonstrators, as they did again, a decade later in 2009.<\/p>\n

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Good Read on #QassemSolemani<\/a>‘s death.#Iranian<\/a> dissidents hail #Soleimani<\/a>\u2019s death as \u2018major, major blow\u2019 for the regime in Tehran https:\/\/t.co\/1iAaT5huch<\/a> #FoxNews<\/a> #FreeIran2020<\/a> pic.twitter.com\/9Cx3tEWyT3<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 NCRI-FAC (@iran_policy) January 4, 2020<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

SOLEIMANI\u2019S ROLE IN MURDERING\u00a0MEK\u00a0<\/a>MEMBERS<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Soleimani played a key role in the killing of the members of\u00a0the People\u2019s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI\/MEK)<\/a>\u00a0in camps Ashraf and Liberty in Iraq.<\/p>\n

Before the 2003 U.S.-Iraq conflict, Soleimani orchestrated several attacks against\u00a0MEK\u00a0<\/a>bases in Iraq.<\/p>\n

From 11 January 1993 to April 2003, Iran\u2019s terrorist\u00a0Quds Force<\/a>\u00a0carried out over 150 terrorist attacks against the MEK in Iraq.<\/p>\n

The Quds force developed the ” Improvised Explosive Device (IED)” to target MEK convoys in Iraq in the 90s. By the end of 2002 over 12 roadside bombs, including IEDs and car bombs were used against MEK convoys, causing death and injury of tens of MEK members. One of the worst attacks was carried out on June 9, 1999. A roadside bomb was detonated alongside the Baghdad-Khalis road as a bus full of MEK members was passing, causing the death of six passengers and the injury of 21 others. Also, several local Iraqi cars were damaged, an Iraqi bypasser was killed and many others were injured.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

The bus carrying MEK members after the explosion<\/em><\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

The bus carrying Iraqi citizens<\/em><\/p>\n

After the 2003 invasion of Iraq, Soleimani expanded his reach on Iraqi soil and used his clout and influence in Iraqi politics and military to orchestrate numerous attacks against MEK members, including the massacres\u00a0at Camp Ashraf\u00a0<\/a>in 2009, 2011 and 2013, and numerous missile attacks in\u00a0Camp Liberty<\/a>\u00a0from 2012 to 2016.<\/p>\n

CAMP ASHRAF MASSACRE<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Soleimani\u2019s most heinous crime occurred on September 1, 2013, which became known as the \u201cCamp Ashraf Massacre<\/a>,\u201d when Quds force proxies, including Kata\u2019ib Hezbollah and Asa\u2019eb Ahl Al-Haq, attacked Camp Ashraf in Iraq\u2019s Diyala province. At the time, only 101 MEK members were residing there as custodians of their properties under an agreement with the UN and the US. The attack led to the execution-style killing of 52 defenseless MEK members. Seven others, including six women, were taken, hostage. Soleimani personally oversaw the plans of the massacre. Two days after the attack, he attended the regime\u2019s Assembly of Experts and described the massacre as \u201cmore important than the Eternal Light operation,\u201d referring to a widespread MEK operation in 1988 which nearly overthrew the regime.<\/p>\n

Altogether from 2009 to 2016, Quds Force proxies in Iraq under the command of Qassem Soleimani killed 141 members of the MEK in terrorist attacks and wounded thousands more.<\/p>\n

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#QassemSoleimani<\/a> was the mastermind of the massacre of #MEK<\/a> in #CampAshraf<\/a> in #Iraq<\/a>,&of many other terrorist operations against the Iranian Resistance in #Iran<\/a>&other countries.With his elimination,the process of #IranRegimeChange<\/a> will be greatly expedited. https:\/\/t.co\/gyGWMOc07e<\/a><\/p>\n

— NCRI-FAC (@iran_policy) January 3, 2020<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n