Slain Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) commander Qassem Soleimani had ordered the killing of former Yemeni president Ali Abdullah Saleh, according to a recently published book on Soleimani.
The book, titled “The Shadow Commander; Soleimani, the US, and Iran’s Global Ambitions,” is a biography of Soleimani by US-based Iranian journalist Arash Azizi.
In the book, Azizi wrote that Soleimani directly ordered the killing of Yemen’s slain ex-president Saleh, who was killed in 2017 by the Iran-backed Houthi militia after he turned against it.
“Two members of the Quds Force involved in setting Iran’s Yemen policy told me this separately. Additionally, a source in the Houthi leadership said this was a request from Soleimani, which had been agreed to by the Houthis themselves,” Azizi said in an interview on his book with Beirut-based think tank the Malcolm H. Kerr Carnegie Middle East Center.
“The circumstances described by them led me to believe the information was credible. It also sat right with what I knew about Soleimani and his decision-making style,” Azizi added.
Soleimani, who headed the Quds Force, the overseas arms IRGC, was killed in a US airstrike at Baghdad’s international airport on January 3. He was considered the second most powerful figure in the Iranian regime after Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.
Source » alarabiya