Report: US Airstrike Kills Iran’s top terrorist mastermind

It is being reported by Al Mayadeen news that Qasem Soleimani, the head of Iran’s Quds Force, has been killed in a recent U.S. airstrike. The Quds Force is the foreign arm of Iran Islamic Republic Revolutionary Guards Corp (IRGC) and a listed terrorist entity in the U.S.

The IRGC is an ideological paramilitary arm of the Islamic Republic; Iran has an army, but the IRGC wields more influence and posses a great military threat. A good comparison to the IRGC is Hitler’s SS. Yes, Nazi Germany had a regular army, but the SS was an elite division of ideological hardliners. This would be the IRGC to contemporary Iran.

The IRGC has a branch that keeps the Iranian people under the iron fist of the Ayatollah, and a foreign unit whose goal is to some chaos globally. Herein was the purpose of Qasem Soleimani and his Quds Force.

Hezbollah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad are just some of the major terrorist organizations that get their orders and funding from the Islamic Republic. There are also countless militant groups worldwide that are propped up by Soleimani, who has been widely regarded as the brains of the IRGC. For example, the war in Yemen started because a group of Houthi tribesmen managed to receive arms and training from the IRGC and then, through a coup, usurped the government.

This fits with the stated goals of the Quds Force, whose intent is to establish an Islamic Caliphate ruled by the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei.  

According to the IRGC, their strategy is to locate “cells of resistance” and train them for Jihad. Where the IRGC identifies a large population of Shia Muslims, they will flood them with radical propaganda and give them the tools needed to destabilize regimes as to widen Iran’s sphere of influence.  

The death of Qasem Soleimani is likely retaliation for Iran’s attack on the U.S. embassy in Iraq. If this is true, it is a massive blow to the Islamic Republic. 

With their top military and logistical mind lost, some argue the feat is amongst the most impressive foreign policy maneuvers. Possibly, more so than the deaths of Osama Bin Laden and Abu Bakar Al Baghdadi.

Soleimani’s location was arguably the biggest state secret in Iran, as not even top Iranian officials knew of his whereabouts. His body count, including from terrorist attacks masterminded, exceeded that of bin Laden’s body count.

If verified, this would be seen as a massive win for the Trump administration for eliminating the top asset of a principal adversary. Also, it would send a clear message to the enemies of the United States that attacks towards America carry grave consequences.