Gen. Soleimani pioneer in fighting intl. terrorism: Russian analyst

Moscow, IRNA – The vice president of the Academy on Geopolitical Affairs in Russia said that Iraqi and Syrian governments are indebted to the former IRGC commander Lieutenant General Qassem Soleimani who pioneered fighting against International terrorism.

In an interview with IRNA on Saturday, Leonid Ivashov said that if now we see that these two countries in the Middle East have managed to win against the ISIS terrorist group, it is because of the efforts of Lieutenant General Qassem Soleimani.

The Lieutenant General, with his military genius, managed to unite civilian and military forces from Iraq and Syria against the ISIS terrorist group, he asserted.

Ivashov added that General Soleimani was the pioneer in the fight against international terrorism in a way that no risk would deter him from the route he had chosen.

"The assassination of this high-ranking military commander on Trump's order represents the hollowness of the US government claims pretending to fight international terrorism," he said, adding that General Soleimani was the most formidable pioneer against terrorism.

He believed that the United States and some Middle Eastern region countries played a pivotal role in ISIS' formation, and this terrorist group could not be involved in a wide-scale terrorist activity in Iraq and Syria without such support.