The assassination of Iranian general Qasem Soleimani by the US military early on Friday morning has been dominating news around the world.
Soleimani has been a key figure in Middle East politics in recent years, given his control of the Quds Force unit of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the armed force responsible for ensuring protection of the Islamic regime in Tehran.
The Quds Force is the wing of the Revolutionary Guard meant for extra-territorial operations and espionage in coordination with allied outfits. In recent years, the Quds Force has been active in Yemen, Syria, Iraq and Lebanon, conducting operations against the interests of the US and Arab allies like Saudi Arabia.
But it has been Israel that has been perceived to be the main target of the Quds Force. The very name of the Quds Force, established during the Iran-Iraq War of the 1980s, is associated with Israel: Quds is the name for Jerusalem in Arabic and Farsi.
In a long-format article in 2018, Israeli media outlet Yedioth Ahronot described Qasem Soleimani as "Israel's most dangerous enemy", having strong ties to Lebanese militant group Hezbollah and the regime of Bashar Assad in Syria. Soleimani was appointed head of the Quds Force in 1998.
Former Mossad director Tamir Pardo in 2018 told Israeli media outlet Yedioth Ahronot that the “Quds is a highly confidential force. Its activities are completely disconnected from the official Iranian system, and it has built its cells across the world in a secret and covert manner... Its main goal is to export the [Iranian Islamic] revolution and encourage radical Islamic elements around the world.”
An Israeli intelligence official noted that unlike other intelligence outfits in the world, which comprise professionals without ideological bias, the Quds Force "really hate us, Israel and the Jews. It’s a burning hatred." This has mostly manifested itself in the form of attacks on Israeli interests around the world.
It was during one such attack that Soleimani and the Quds Force briefly hit headlines in India. In February 2012, the wife of the Israeli defence attaché to India was injured after the car she was travelling in was targeted by a motorcycle-borne blast in Delhi. Two Indians, who were bystanders, were also injured.
On the same day, an employee of the Israeli embassy in Tbilisi, Georgia, had a narrow escape when explosives attached to his car failed to explode.
A day later, a bomb accidentally exploded in Bangkok, Thailand, when two Iranians were trying to assemble explosives. One of the Iranians fled the scene and threw a bomb at a taxi, injuring five people. The duo were believed to be part of a group planning assassinations of Israeli diplomats in Bangkok. Both men were convicted in 2013.
Then Israeli vice prime minister Moshe Yaalon named Soleimani as the mastermind behind the incident in Delhi. “We see what is happening in India, Georgia and Thailand. It is the same pattern. The same bomb, the same lab, the same factory,” Yaalon said in an interview to Israel's Maariv.
A freelance journalist was arrested by Delhi Police over the Delhi bomb attack. The suspect, who had worked for Iranian state-run IRNA, was later released on bail.
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The investigation into the case made little progress. The Israeli government released a statement on the Delhi attack in 2014 stating that “four arrest warrants were issued against the Iranian culprits who have escaped. It is understood that the Iranian authorities did not provide answers to the government of India.”
Arguably, the most devastating attack that Israel has attributed to the Quds Force is the bombing of a Jewish community centre in Argentina's capital of Buenos Aires in July 1994. Eighty-five people were killed and hundreds injured in the incident. Two years prior to that, the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires was bombed, killing 29 people.
For the Jewish community centre bombing, Argentina filed charges against General Ahmad Vahidi, the head of Quds Force at the time. Vahidi rose to become Iran's defence minister in 2009.
