The targeted killing of the head of the Quds Force, the external operations arm of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps (“Army of the Guardians of the Islamic Revolution,” Sipah-e Pasdaran-e Inqilab-e Islami; IRGC) by the U.S. at the Baghdad International Airport has unleashed a debate and commentary storm about a range of issues from the most likely to possible fallout and results of the drone strike, whether or not Soleimani is replaceable, whether the assassinations were “legal” or not, what this means for U.S. interests in the Middle East and its forces there and in Afghanistan, among others.
Soleimani’s long career in the IRGC and the creation of his prominent media image, which was fed both by the Iranian state and external news media coverage and the commentariat including in the West, together with his network of interpersonal relationships with a range of non-state and quasi-state armed groups and political actors in the Middle East and wider Muslim-majority world is indisputable even if the results of his killing and the public acknowledgement of it by the U.S. government is still unclear. Soleimani was intimately involved in maintaining and strengthening the Iranian state’s regional network of allied and client groups including Lebanon’s Hizbullah, the Houthi movement (Ansarullah) in Yemen, a host of Iraqi and Syrian armed groups and political parties, and Afghan and Pakistani paramilitary units attached to the IRGC, the Lashkar-e Fatimiyyun and Lashkar-e Zaynabiyyun respectively. He oversaw Iran’s asymmetrical and covert warfare against the U.S., Israel, and the former’s regional allies including Saudi Arabia beginning in the years following the U.S. and British invasion and occupation of Iraq in 2003. Though most frequently associated with Shi’i groups he also maintained ties with other groups including Iraq’s Kurdistan Regional Government including in its fight against Islamic State in 2014.
The late general also leaves behind a legacy in the visual culture and production of the Iranian state and its array of allied and client groups in the Middle East and farther abroad, which is, as is much of my academic research, the subject of this post.
“Among the Believers are men true to their covenant with God. Among them is the one who has fulfilled their vow [unto death] and among them is the one who awaits their opportunity, and they did not alter [their commitment] in any way.” [Qur’an 33:23]
Soleimani in Syria with Lashkar-e Fatimiyyun cleric-“martyr” ‘Ali Tamam-Zadeh (Abu Hadi) and Murtaza ‘Ata’i (Abu ‘Ali). 
Soleimani with Lashkar-e Fatimiyyun commander “martyr” Sayyid Ja’far Amiri in Syria. 
Soleimani with Lashkar-e Fatimiyyun “martyr” Murtaza ‘Ata’i in Syria. 
Soleimani with Lashkar-e Fatimiyyun “martyr” Murtaza ‘Ata’i in Syria. 
Soleimani with slain Lashkar-e Fatimiyyun members Mustafa Sadr-Zadeh (Sayyid Ibrahim), Mahdi Saberi (Gholam-Hossein), & Nader Hamid in Syria.
Soleimani with Lashkar-e Fatimiyyun “martyr” Mustafa Sadr-Zadeh 
Soleimani in Albu Kamal, Iraq in 2017. 
“Thank you, Commander, for the morning (dawn) after Da’ish.” 
Soleimani visits a martyrs’ graveyard in Iran. 
“Thank you, commander.” 
Soleimani with Iraqi forces during the 2015 Tikrit offensive against Islamic State. 
Soleimani with Iraqi Shi’i Badr Organization chief Hadi al-‘Amiri during the 2015 Tikrit offensive against Islamic State. 
Poster for a “Resistance Front” event featuring Soleimani. 
Soleimani visits a wounded Lashkar-e Fatimiyyun fighter, Sayyid ‘Ali Asghar Hosseini, in the hospital in February 2018.
“Just Retaliation-in-kind (Qisas ‘adil)”:
Just retribution is the responsibility and duty of all resistance fighters and mujahidin throughout the world.” -Hizbullah secretary-general Hasan Nasrallah on Soleimani’s killing.
“We are the people of Imam Husayn” -Brigade of Qasim Soleimani
UPDATED JANUARY 27:
Soleimani alongside ‘Imad Mughniyya & Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis 
Christopher Anzalone 