Bombings hit event for Iran's Gen. Qassem Soleimani, a shadowy figure slain in 2020 US drone strike

For Iranians backing the country’s theocracy, Gen. Qassem Soleimani represented a popular figure of national resilience in the face of four decades of U.S. pressure

TEHRAN, Iran -- For Iranians backing the country's theocracy, whose icons since the Islamic Revolution have been stern-faced clergymen, Gen. Qassem Soleimani represented a popular figure of national resilience in the face of four decades of U.S. pressure.

For the U.S. and Israel, he was a shadowy figure in command of Iran's proxy forces, responsible for fighters in Syria backing President Bashar Assad and for the deaths of American troops in Iraq.

Solemani survived the horror of Iran’s long war in the 1980s with Iraq to take control of the Revolutionary Guard’s elite Quds Force, responsible for the Islamic Republic’s campaigns abroad.

Relatively unknown in Iran until the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, Soleimani's popularity and mystique grew after American officials called for his killing. A decade and a half later, Soleimani had become Iran's most recognizable battlefield commander, ignoring calls to enter politics but growing as powerful, if not more, than its civilian leadership.

“The warfront is mankind’s lost paradise,” Soleimani said in a 2009 interview. “One type of paradise that is portrayed for mankind is streams, beautiful nymphs and greeneries. But there is another kind of paradise. ... The warfront was the lost paradise of the human beings, indeed.”