Some of the voices from the Middle East that aren't bemoaning the fate of Soleimani, or cursing Trump. From Haaretz:
Conversations with Syrians who survived shelling, siege, starvation and displacement at the hands of pro-Iranian militias guided by the Quds Force leader show that while U.S. President Donald Trump’s decision to assassinate Soleimani was not made with them in mind, it surely earned their resounding support.
“It’s true they killed him for the Americans and not for the crimes he carried out against us or the Iraqi people. Still, may God give Trump health. He rid us of a piece of garbage, a criminal and a bloody murderer,” says Zaher, a Syrian journalist who survived the siege of Aleppo. (Zaher asked that his full name not be used for this article.)
Syria is arguably the country most affected by Iran’s regional ambitions. Iranian intervention in the country began in 2011 following the outbreak of peaceful protests there, and gradually increased as the country slipped into civil war. As Syrian regime forces suffered from a severe manpower shortage, the Quds Force – the foreign ops arm of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards – stepped up to fill the void by dispatching tens of thousands of foreign fighters to Syria from Lebanon, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Those forces, more ideologically committed and disciplined than the Syrian Army and Syrian pro-regime militias, took key roles in besieging, bombing and crushing rebellious communities across Syria. [...]
Majd al-Deen al-Hassoun, who lived through the siege and nearly died during a chlorine gas attack in November 2016 – which he endured while recovering from a shrapnel wound to his stomach – tells Haaretz the pro-Iranian forces “would massacre anyone trying to use the Castelo Road, whether civilian or armed, trying to escape the airstrikes and destruction” as Russia bombed from the air and the regime deployed incendiary weapons, chemical weapons and cluster munition. “It’s impossible to describe their evilness – they played a crucial role in the fall of Aleppo,” in December 2016, Hassoun says. Some 34,000 residents of eastern Aleppo who refused to surrender to the regime were displaced to rebel-held northern Syria.
Following the fall of the city, Soleimani triumphantly visited eastern Aleppo. A photo of that visit, taken in the al-Shaar neighborhood, was widely shared on social media. When Hassoun first saw the photo while displaced in the northern Aleppo countryside, he says he “felt horrible. You see your neighborhood that was free … [and] see the Iranian occupier there … defiling it. I wished I had died that moment.”
Three years on, Hassoun says he rejoiced upon hearing the news of Soleimani’s demise. “I felt on top of the world,” he says, recounting how he rushed from his village to the nearest town so he could “participate in the wonderful celebrations. Owners of candy stores were distributing sweets for free. We danced and sang.”
[Photo credit: AFP]
It's not just Syria: in Iraq too. From the Times (£):
Iraqi MPs may want to evict American troops from the country but Ahmed al-Hamdani has other ideas.
A former special forces sniper, Mr Hamdani, 29, fought Isis in the badlands of Anbar and the alleyways of Tirkit. There is one malign foreign influence in his country as far as he is concerned, and it is not the US.
He says of the Iraqi government: “This is a government of terror, and Iran is at its heart.”
Mr Hamdani is camping out in Tahrir Square in Baghdad trying to overthrow the government for which he once risked his life. “I saw what terror was when I fought Isis, I saw what the Iranians have done to some people.”
Some have predicted that the killing of Qasem Soleimani by the US at Baghdad airport will be the death knell for America’s presence in Iraq. The Iraqi parliament voted to expel US forces and Iraq’s Shia politicians have tried to rally anti-American sentiment.
Yet the reverse has happened among many young people taking part in protests that began as a cry against government corruption and the rising cost of living. When pro-Iranian militias, apparently authorised by the government to confront protesters, shot dead hundreds of them, the demonstrations became a movement against the influence of Tehran on Baghdad.
Mr Hamdani holds thei Iranian-backed militias responsible for the killing of his fellow protesters and says that those behind the push to expel the US are trying to hijack his cause. “What I really care about is what is good for Iraq,” he says. “If it’s good for Iraq that the British and Americans here, then OK. The number one supporter of this government and its evil is Iran.
“General Soleimani was a man of war, but he was also a terrorist. We all know the Americans don’t share those values.”
It is three months since protests began across the country. Tahrir Square, across the Tigris from the diplomatic Green Zone, is the movement’s heart. Some call it the capital of free Iraq. The square has become a self-sufficient community where protesters eat, sleep and do their laundry. Many here have not been home since October.
The parliamentary vote angered many protesters. In the square, Arabic music blares out, interrupted by the tooting of tuk-tuks as they ferry protesters around the site free of charge. A young woman wears a T-shirt with the slogan “Not My Parliament” — a phrase also printed on posters across the square.
Ali Abbas, 30, is more explicit. “Don’t believe what you see in the media — a lot of us are out here to be against Iran. We’re not against the US or the UN, they are our friends.”
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