Tue 11 February 2020:
Iranian Parliament Speaker’s Special Aide for International Affairs Hossein Amir-Abdollahian uncovered on Sunday that former Iranian military commander Qassem Soleimani, who was killed in a US drone strike in Baghdad on Jan. 3, had managed Iran’s battles in Syria from the “Bashar Assad operation room.”
Speaking at a conference on the “role of lieutenant Soleimani in the development of regional, global security and justice,” Abdollahian said that when Damascus was about to fall in the hands of terrorist groups, and when those militias came close to government headquarters in Damascus by digging underground tunnels, the Iranian diaspora in Syria asked that we send them evacuation planes to leave the Syrian capital.
However, the Iranian official said that Soleimani decided to travel to Damascus and inform Assad that he would personally manage the situation in Syria from the President’s operation room.
“This is what happened exactly,” Abdollahian said.
He said that during the Syrian crisis, most members of the Iranian Supreme National Security Council were opposed to the flight of Gen. Soleimani to Damascus. Despite the situation, Abdollahian said that the Quds Commander insisted on traveling to the Syrian capital to help Assad control the situation.
According to the Iranian official, Soleimani supervised the joint US-Iraqi-Iranian meetings in Iraq during the past decade.
“The entire negotiation phase was run by General Soleimani,” he explained.
Abdollahian said Soleimani was not only a military commander but also a prominent diplomat and a great politician who, if needed, used diplomatic methods to carry out his mission.
“The situation in the region has become very complex in recent years and the developments are steep, requiring that the commander not just think militarily, so the commander chooses diplomatic tactics and all the capabilities available to carry out his mission to the maximum- which was restoring peace and security of the country and the region,” the Iranian official said.
Asharq Al-Awsat
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