Crescent International
Today (January 3) marks the fourth anniversary of the martyrdom of General Qassem Solaimani.
Hundreds of thousands of people in his home province of Kerman, Iran held a ceremony marking his anniversary.
A day earlier, the zionist war criminals martyred Saleh al-Arouri in Beirut, the Lebanese capital.
He was deputy head of Hamas’s Political Bureau.
Al-Arouri’s assassination is a major escalation in the zionist onslaught on Gaza in which more than 22,000 Palestinian civilians have been murdered since October 7.
More than 70 percent of them are women and children.
What is the link between Al-Arouri’s assassination and that of General Solaimani four years earlier?
He was closely involved in suggesting the digging of tunnels as part of the Gaza resistance.
He had visited the tiny enclave many times, clearly at great risk to his person.
He suggested to Hamas and Palestine Islamic Jihad to build underground tunnels as defensive mechanism against Israel’s total superiority in the air.
Gaza’s underground tunnels have proved an extremely effective means to thwart Zionist ground attacks on Gaza.
If one were to draw a parallel with early Islamic history, Gaza’s tunnels are the equivalent of the trench the Prophet (pbuh) and his companions dug around Madinah as a defence mechanism to ward off the mushrik and Yahudi invaders.
Interestingly, both suggestions came from people of Persian origin.
The trench idea was proposed by Salman al-Farsi, one of the close companions of the Prophet (pbuh).
The tunnels idea was proposed by General Qassem Solaimani, also of Iran.
Let us return to the story of the most famous Iranian general.
He was martyred along with his Iraqi host and comrade, Abu Mahdi al-Mohandis as well as eight of their companions outside Baghdad International Airport in 2020.
Having arrived on a flight from Damascus, Syria, General Solaimani was received by Abu Mahdi al-Mohandis at the airport.
Before taking the late-night flight from Damascus, General Solaimani had spent several hours with Hizbullah leader, Seyyed Hassan Nasrallah in Beirut discussing the latest regional developments.
The missile strike against General Solaimani was carried out on the express orders of Donald Trump, a war criminal and at the time president of the US terrorist regime.
The US missile strike on the soil of a foreign country was illegal under international law and against the sovereignty of Iraq.
Further, killing the top commander of another country, as well as a top commander of the host country, constituted war crimes.
Besides, General Solaimani was on a diplomatic mission.
He carrying a response letter from the government of the Islamic Republic to the Saudis.
This was being conveyed via the Iraqi prime minister who was acting as mediator between Iran and Saudi Arabia.
Who was General Qassem Solaimani and why did the US want to assassinate him when he was fighting terrorist outfits like Daesh/ISIS that the US was also allegedly fighting?
As head of the Quds Force in the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), General Solaimani was instrumental in organizing and coordinating the activities of various resistance groups.
These included Hizbullah, Hamas, Palestine Islamic Jihad, Iraq’s Hashd al-Shabi and the Yemeni Ansarallah resistance movement.
He had successfully battled the Daesh terrorists in Iraq who had erupted, with US help, in July 2014.
It took General Solaimani and the Iraqi militias three years to defeat the terrorists who fled the country and continued their US-instigated nefarious activities in Syria.
It was again General Solaimani and his comrades in the Quds Force who took on the terrorists there.
Backed by the US and Israel, the Daesh terrorists are now confined to a few pockets in Syria’s Idlib province.
It is quite revealing that while the US claims to be fighting terrorists—it uses this excuse for the illegal presence of its forces in Syria—it assassinated the very person who was instrumental in defeating the terrorists.
It was his defeat of the US-zionist plot for regime change in Syria that so irked the Americans.
If the plot had succeeded, it would have opened the way for the attempted overthrow of the Islamic system of governance in Iran.
Far from fighting terrorism, the US is its chief patron and promoter.
In a March 2016 interview with Fox News, presidential candidate Hillary Clinton admitted that the US had created, trained and armed the terrorists it was fighting now.
She was referring to al-Qaeda that the US had supported during the Afghan struggle against the Soviets.
Al-Qaeda morphed into Daesh (aka ISIS) and appeared in Iraq.
Its leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi (real name, Ibrahim al-Badri al-Samarrai) declared a worldwide khilafah with himself as “khalifah”.
Who was Al-Baghdadi?
He was recruited by the Americans in Buca camp which the US opened after the horrors of Abu Ghraib were exposed where Iraqi prisoners were mercilessly tortured.
Al-Baghdadi was “incarcerated” in Buca camp between 2004–2006 but unlike other prisoners who were kept isolated from each other, al-Baghdadi would freely meet and recruit members for his Daesh/ISIS project.
While using the pretext of fighting terrorists, the US actually tightened its military grip on Iraq.
Who fought Daesh? It was the late General Qassem Solaimani who organized resistance to the terrorist outfit.
The Daesh/ISIS terrorists have since appeared in Afghanistan under a new name: the Islamic State of Khorasan (ISK).
It is interesting to see how sacred symbols of Islam are used to hoodwink Muslims into serving America’s agenda.
The assassination of General Solaimani exposed America’s true agenda.
Trump and his minions will be held accountable for this crime.
