The U.S. military, at the direction of President Donald Trump, killed Iran’s most significant military figure, Qasem Soleimani, in airstrikes in Baghdad early Friday morning in a huge blow to the Islamic Republic.
The Pentagon confirmed in a statement that it killed Maj. Gen. Soleimani, the commander of Iran’s elite military forces, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps-Quds Force, as well as the commander of Iranian-controlled Shia militia forces in Iraq, Syria, and around the world.
“The reported deaths of Iranian General Qassem Suleimani and the Iraqi commander of the militia that killed an American last week was a bold and decisive military action made possible by excellent intelligence and the courage of America’s service members,” said Lt. Col. (Ret.) James Carafano, vice president of the Heritage Foundation’s Davis Institute for National Security and Foreign Policy.
“His death is a huge loss for Iran’s regime and its Iraqi proxies, and a major operational and psychological victory for the United States,” Carafano added.
Phillip Smyth, an expert at the Washington Institute on Iran-controlled Shia militias and the Middle East, agreed.
“This is a major blow,” he said. “I would argue that this is probably the most major decapitation strike the United States has ever carried out. … This is a man who controlled a transnational foreign legion that was controlling governments in numerous different countries.”
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Smyth said Soleimani had a cult of personality, as well as a unique leadership role in the Iran-controlled Shia militia network.
“He had a hell of a lot of power and a hell of a lot of control,” he said. “You have to be a strong leader in order to get these people to work with you, know how and when to play them off one another, and also know which Iranians do I need within the IRGC-QF, which Lebanese do I need, which Iraqis do I need … that’s not something you can just pick up at a local five and dime. It takes decades of experience.”
Several other experts also agreed that Soleimani’s death was even more significant than al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden’s, or Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s.