General of the elite Iranian special forces Al-Quds of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Qasem Soleimani, killed in early January as a result of a US strike, personally persuaded Russian President Vladimir Putin to launch a military operation in Syria in 2015. His role in the decision of the Russian president was revealed by the leader of the Lebanese group “Hezbollah” Hassan Nasrallah, reports the Telegram channel “Military Observer” with reference to the Iranian agency Fars.
According to Nasrallah, Soleimani visited Moscow in the summer of 2015, hoping to get the Russian authorities to intervene in the situation in Syria. At the same time, the Iranian general had all the operational information on the situation in Syria and a map.
The next time Suleimani arrived in Moscow in December of the same year, three months after the official start of the Russian military operation in Syria. It is noted that then he held several meetings with representatives of the Russian Ministry of Defense and personally with Putin.
Suleimani died in Iraqi Baghdad on January 3, 2020, in a missile attack from the United States. Together with the general, several officers accompanying him and the deputy commander of the Iraqi Shiite militia, Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, were killed. In response, Tehran fired dozens of missiles at American targets in Iraq on the night of January 8. The operation that took place was named “Martyr of Suleimani”. The United States declared no casualties and minimal damage to military bases.
The Pentagon said that the order to kill Soleimani was personally issued by President Donald Trump. This idea to the American leader could have been submitted by Secretary of State Michael Pompeo. The United States believed that the general was involved in the attacks on coalition bases and the American embassy in Baghdad.
Russia has been conducting a military operation in Syria since September 2015. The goal of the campaign was called support for the government army and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in the fight against terrorists, including the “Islamic State” (IS, banned in Russia).
