The head of Iran’s Quds Force, Gen. Qasem Soleimani, has returned to Iran from his Iraq trip with harsh words for both the Islamic State (IS) militants that overran parts of Iraq and the United States and its coalition.
Soleimani’s trip to Iraq to advise Iraqi forces fighting IS was unusually public for a general who has issued very few statements and given even fewer interviews throughout his career. From early September all the way through last week, numerous pictures of the commander, who Western media organizations often call “shadowy,” posing with Iraqi forces and sometimes even smiling for the camera appeared on Twitter, Facebook and Iranian websites.
