All language subtitles for Shadow.Commander.Irans.Military.Mastermind.2019.1080p.WEBRip.x264-CBFM

Whenever you speak about
an Iranian intervention,

the mastermind behind
it is Qasem Soleimani,

and the one that leads it
is Qasem Soleimani.

Most people have never heard of him,

but he's been pulling
the strings behind the scenes

in the Middle East for decades.

We saw Qasem Soleimani
as a very capable,

charismatic, skilled,
professionally competent,

diabolically evil human being.

He's orchestrated deadly attacks
on British and American soldiers.

It was a constant arms race -
their bombs got bigger,

our protection got bigger.

Iran's military mastermind
is now at the centre

of the global stage.

He started to become a commander,

also sort of a spy,

but he seemed to have more power
than any kind of person

on our side ever had.

But who is Qasem Soleimani?

And is he shaping up
for a new conflict with the West

in the region?

We can see him as the Darth Vader

of contemporary
Middle Eastern politics.

ARCHIVE: They're replying to the
bullets with Molotov cocktails.

It's about the only use they've got
now for American Coca-Cola bottles.

The man who would become such
a central figure in the Middle East

was a child of
the Iranian Revolution.

Qasem Soleimani comes from a very
working-class background.

He really came of age at the time
of the Islamic Revolution.

He was really gripped by it,

for him, this was something
that motivated him.

The revolution swept
away the monarchy,

supported by the West,

and brought Ayatollah Khomeini
to power.

Iran became an Islamic republic,

a religious state based on
Shia Muslim beliefs.

America, and its ally Israel,
now became the enemy.

Ayatollah Khomeini's world view

was very distinctly anti-Western
in its perspective,

and seeing Israel as one of the
chief enemies of the Muslim world.

ARCHIVE: These young men,
practising to be soldiers,

want to be part of the army
of 20 million

that Khomeini has called for.

A new military force was born -
the Revolutionary Guard.

A young Soleimani joined up.

Qasem Soleimani is a genuine
and sincere believer in the ideals

of the revolution. I mean,
he is an austere revolutionary,

and his loyalty to the supreme
leader is uncompromising.

ARCHIVE: Ayatollah Khomeini has
faced the renewed threat of American

military intervention,
and, more immediately,

a flare-up in the border
fighting with Iraq.

Within months of the revolution,
Iran was invaded by its neighbour,

Saddam Hussein's Iraq.

As a young commander,

Qasem Soleimani began to make
a name for himself.

A million Iranians died in the
bloody eight-year war against Iraq.

ARCHIVE: Religion is all.

Prayer and slaughter
are intermingled.

Somehow, Soleimani survived,

creating the myth of him
as a living martyr.

While Qasem Soleimani
was fighting Iraq,

the Islamic Revolution
was being spread

to another country
in the Middle East.

ARCHIVE: Hezbollah is
Iran's creation.

Ayatollah Khomeini founded
it in its present form in Tehran

eight years ago.

Hezbollah, the Shia party of God,

grew as a response to Israel's
invasion of neighbouring Lebanon.

The philosophy of
the Islamic Revolution

was and is that the world

should be a new Muslim,
Shi'ite caliphate.

There are two obstacles
to the Iranians.

One is the United States of America,

which they call the big Satan,

and the other one is the
Israeli democracy,

which they call the small Satan.

Hezbollah became a powerful
force in the region,

carrying out terror attacks
against America and Israel.

The leading cause of death
of Americans overseas,

and hostage-taking,

was all Lebanese Hezbollah people
and Iranian people.

They kidnapped people
around the world as a business.

I survived the April 1983
bombing of our embassy.

I was there for the bombing
of the Marine barracks.

244 dead Marines.

That was Iran projecting power
beyond its borders

to demonstrate that it was truly
a regional superpower.

"Beware."

And we then came to see
Qasem Soleimani emerge

as the field commander for Iranian
force projection.

In the 1990s, Soleimani
joined the Quds Force,

the most elite and secretive unit
in the Revolutionary Guard.

The Quds Force specialised in
what we might term

low-intensity warfare, which is,
basically, aspects of infiltration -

being able to build networks,
manipulate,

infiltrate into different societies.

It's, in some ways,
an Iranian way in warfare.

America was still
the Great Satan in 1998,

when Qasem Soleimani became
head of the Quds Force.

He was running all military
and intelligence operations

outside Iran.

But the whole world
was about to change.

DISTANT SIREN

ARCHIVE: In the past few minutes,

a plane has crashed into the
World Trade Centre in New York.

This is the face of warfare
in the 21st century.

I was actually on my way
to New York that morning.

We could see the smoke coming
from the first tower.

And, as we landed at LaGuardia,
the second tower was hit.

And that's when we all knew
that this was not an accident,

it was a deliberate attack.

9/11 would turn
the Middle East on its head.

The attackers were
Sunni Muslim extremists -

opposed not only to the West,
but also Shia Iran.

Iranians cried for the American
victims of Al-Qaeda.

We all realised that this
development opened up a moment

in which the United States and Iran
could cooperate effectively.

We both had the same
enemies in Afghanistan.

Within a week, I was on one
of the first planes out to Geneva.

Secret talks began between Ryan
Crocker and an Iranian diplomat.

He'd been sent by Qasem Soleimani
to explore ways to defeat

the Taliban, Al-Qaeda's
protectors in Afghanistan.

He produced a map that showed...

..the Taliban order of battle
throughout Afghanistan,

and he accompanied
that with the advice

that we strike
certain targets first.

I asked if I could take notes,
he said, "You can keep the map."

For some of these things
we were doing and talking about

clearly reflected
Qasem Soleimani's ability

to make things happen quickly.

The Taliban -
Sunni extremists like Al-Qaeda -

threatened Shia Iran
as well as America.

There was none of this talk
about the horrors of the past -

what we had done to Iran,
what Iran had done to us.

He was all about,

"Let's get on with this show,
like, right now."

For months, American diplomats
were locked in talks

with their traditional foe.

But then one speech
changed everything.

GEORGE W BUSH: Our goal is to
prevent regimes that sponsor terror

from threatening America,
or our friends and allies,

with weapons of mass destruction.

I was awakened by my staff,
saying something like,

"Boss, you're really not
going to like this."

And right they were -
I really did not like it.

Iran aggressively pursues
these weapons and exports terror.

States like these,
and their terrorist allies,

constitute an axis of evil,

arming to threaten the peace
of the world.

We moved, literally, overnight,

from a situation in which we were
doing business with Iran

on Afghanistan that was
quite significant,

and that held open the prospect
of a completely different chapter

opening up in our relationship.

"Axis of evil" slammed that door
shut, and it has not since reopened.

Powerful voices within
the White House insisted Iran

was their principal
enemy in the region...

..but, within a year,

America would be at war in another
country in the Middle East.

ARCHIVE: The White House said
within the past few minutes

that military action
against Iraq is beginning...

It was just as dawn was breaking
in Baghdad that a series

of explosions was heard
in the southern suburbs...

Well, I entered Iraq with the
invasion, the fight to Baghdad,

in late March of 2003.

Certainly, from fairly early on,

Iran had been getting more
and more active in Iraq.

The US-led invasion of Iraq
would bring Western troops

into Qasem Soleimani's back yard.

Iran was part of the whole complex
political dynamic

that we were trying to handle.

They were definitely a force
that you had to recognise

as being an inevitability.

EXPLOSIONS

COMMS: Roger, requesting
ammo resupply, over!

With the invasion,
what happened is, Iran perceived,

"Now, we've got Americans
on the east,

"Americans on the west,

"and Americans to the south."

I think it could look like a pretty
threatening period for Iran.

Iran was worried about
a pre-eminent American presence,

and the instability that comes

from the overthrow
of Saddam Hussein.

Qasem Soleimani was, by now,

Iran's leading military
commander and strategist -

but only a few Western
intelligence officers

were aware of him.

I met Qasem Soleimani once.

It was an inadvertent
sort of a bump.

He doesn't look like

what you would expect a guerrilla
leader to look like.

He's a polished man,

and a capable man with a significant
command presence about him,

a professional.

Qasem Soleimani was interested
in outcomes and processes

that would keep the Iraqi state
off balance, always.

So, that no matter who ruled
in Baghdad,

they would not be able
to do what Saddam Hussein did -

threaten the very existence of Iran.

Iran had always had huge
influence in Iraq.

Two thirds of Iraqis
are Shia Muslims, like the Iranians.

A WOMAN SCREAMS

As the occupation dragged on,
Sunni militants grew strong.

In 2006, they blew up
an important Shia shrine.

Nouri al-Maliki had just
been elected Prime Minister of Iraq.

The bombing of the Shia mosque
was a turning point,

sparking all-out
sectarian civil war.

It was an opportunity for Iran to
help its Shia brothers,

forming militias in Iraq.

Iran increasingly sought
to achieve greater influence,

not an absolute ability to direct,
but an ability, certainly,

to throw a very significant
monkey wrench into the gears.

Qasem Soleimani was in charge
of Iranian policy in Iraq,

but he kept below the radar.

I don't recall when I first heard of
Qasem Soleimani as an individual.

I don't remember when I first heard
about Qasem Soleimani.

I'm quite sure that I would've read,
you know, intelligence reports

on him, gotten a sense of him.

He was probably pulling the strings
as the commander from afar,

so we knew he was there, but no,
I don't think we ever saw

his direct name directly linked
to any actions in Southern Iraq.

But behind the scenes,
Qasem Soleimani's Quds Force

began to provide support
to the Shia militias.

Qais Khazali was the leader of one
of the most hardline groups.

It became more and more
and more obvious

that they were recruiting
Iraqi Shia Arabs,

taking them to Iran,

training them there,
and then sending them back into Iraq

and then, over time, enabling them
with very sophisticated weapons.

Attacks on coalition troops
by local Shia militias

became more frequent and successful.

It was becoming clear Soleimani
was orchestrating them.

He was now a potential US target.

We saw a convoy coming into
the north, and there was reporting

that said Qasem Soleimani
was probably with that convoy.

We went through the decision -
"So, what do you do?"

Do we attack the convoy
with a raid force,

do we bomb the convoy,

do we do nothing?

We weren't 100% sure, first,
whether Soleimani was on the convoy,

and second, whether we had authority
or good enough rationale to go

after Soleimani,
particularly to kill him.

It was pretty dicey stuff.

This wasn't like normal
counterterrorist ops

where you land and you'd have a fire
fight on the ground.

It was almost like police ops.

The Americans swooped
and arrested five Iranians.

They claimed to be diplomats.

We became convinced
as we did interrogations

that they were all
Quds Force members.

We were never able to confirm
whether Qasem Soleimani

was on the convoy that night.

We thought that he was.

I had no reason later
to think that he wasn't,

but probably that he peeled
off at some point.

It looked like Soleimani
had had a close escape.

Retaliation was swift and deadly.

It was an attack that
had been carefully planned.

There was, in fact,
subterfuge to enter a base

in which there were American
soldiers operating.

They used black vehicles
with the same, you know,

flashing lights and everything else
that we had for our forces.

They managed to hoodwink
the guards in the facility

as they drove through.

They got in, essentially unscathed,

and then quickly, er,
with the element of surprise,

seized a number of Americans.

Five American soldiers
were kidnapped from their own base.

It was an audacious operation.

The Karbala attack reflected
a real upping of the ante.

This is no longer just
militias with AK-47s.

This is a real special operation,
carried out very skilfully

by quite highly trained individuals.

One US soldier was
killed immediately.

Four others discovered dead
in a car days later.

We found vehicles with
the Americans in them.

One had written, before he died,
his name in dust or blood.

So it created a tremendous amount
of emotion on the American side,

and our strong belief that the
Quds Force fingerprints

were all over this.

And Qasem Soleimani's?

Well, we assumed that
everything the Quds Force did

was under the control
of Qasem Soleimani.

By this point, he was starting
to be a hugely respected...

I don't want to say
mythological figure,

but I probably ought to say,
someone who had tremendous reach.

Then, in Southern Iraq,
the British received a tip-off.

We got intelligence one night

that there was a high-priced
militia cell down in our base,

and so we called the Special Forces
down to do a raid on this.

Get in there, get in there,
get in there!

And the people they captured
in the raid were the

Khazali brothers, Qais Khazali,
in particular, being well known.

On their laptops were found
to be clear links

to all kinds of violence,
all kinds of links to Iran.

They had actually digitised
all of the so-called pocket litter -

ie, everything that was
in the wallets of the captain

and the others that were killed, er,
from the American side,

and we were able to get
that off the hard drive,

and that told us that this is very
clearly their after-action report

to their Quds Force handlers.

Well, we just knew from their
reaction when he got captured

that he was, he was one
of those subordinate commanders

under Soleimani, which is why we
didn't see Soleimani on the ground,

because he had people like
Qais Khazali to do his work for him.

In prison, under interrogation,
Qais Khazali gave a detailed account

of Iran's involvement.

Today, he is unrepentant.

It caused the Iranians
huge embarrassment.

They wanted to keep themselves
in the shadows and not be seen,

a bit like when you touch
a sea anemone or an octopus.

They just retracted their, er,
their feelers out

and sort of withdrew back into Iran

and went very quiet
for a few weeks afterwards,

while they allowed the brouhaha

about themselves being exposed
there, while that rolled over.

It reflected the fact that we were
in a shadow war with Iran.

Qasem Soleimani's shadow war
was to have devastating consequences

for British soldiers
fighting in southern Iraq.

ARCHIVE: British servicemen
were mourning the deaths

of four soldiers,
two of them women...

ARCHIVE: A roadside bomb ripped
through a Warrior armoured vehicle.

During the Iraq War, 179 British
soldiers were killed.

Hundreds more were injured
and maimed, many for life.

2007 was the peak.

It was the most intense period
of violence since the invasion.

We had 41 people
killed in my time there,

and innumerable people injured.

And one of the most significant
incidents for me

was when a mine blew a Warrior off
the road

and killed four people in it.

Made all the more tragic

by the fact there were
two women inside there,

one of whom had been
at Sandhurst with Prince Harry.

And you could just feel the sort
of will to fight in Iraq ebbing away

in the British nation.

Coalition forces were being attacked
with a new and devastating weapon -

EFPs, explosively
formed projectiles.

Most people hit
with an EFP will die,

simply because the injury
is catastrophic.

You then have the
behind-armour effects,

you have the spalling
from the armour,

all spinning around inside,

so it wasn't a nice thing to see.

People were literally
torn to shreds.

Task Force Troy was set up to track
the source of the weapons

and target the militias using them.

No-one has spoken publicly
about their work before.

We knew Iraq didn't have
the technology to design itself,

so the intellectual property,
and the means of creating an EFP

to devastating effect
was coming from Iran.

And that was backed up
by the numbering

and the lettering on the packaging
that we saw on the EFPs

as we found them in caches.

The explosive devices
were coming into Iraq

across its porous borders
with Iran,

especially through
the southern marshes.

You have the high reed beds,
you have very small, narrow boats,

and once it gets into the marshes,
it doesn't really matter

what surveillance you have,
it's extremely difficult to follow

where those boats are going.

What they did was,
they supplied the local militias

with explosive devices,
and so we knew that was happening,

but we simply couldn't
stop them coming in.

We were playing a cat-and-mouse game

with the insurgents
on a daily basis.

Their bombs got bigger,
our protection got bigger.

It didn't really matter what
technology you threw at the problem,

they would find a counter to that
and get ahead of you again.

So this was very calculated by Iran,
by the Revolutionary Guard,

by, presumably, Qasem Soleimani?

Yes, I think, absolutely.
It was an intimidation campaign.

I mean, it wasn't all-out war, but
it was just keeping the heat on us,

saying, "You'd better get out,"
you know.

GUNFIRE

They're moving up on us,
they're moving up on us!

By the end of 2007,
the Shia militias

had the small British force
under siege in Basra.

Back, back, back!

He said, "Are you with me?"

I said, "But I need you -
don't get into a fight immediately.

"Your forces cannot deal
with what is on the ground there

"without a lot
of support from us."

But Prime Minister al-Maliki
pressed on to Basra.

The Shia militias,
backed by Qasem Soleimani's

Quds Force, seemed
about to take the city.

Al-Maliki's life was on the line.

Dave and I were sitting
in my office with a cellphone

on speaker, talking
to him down there.

You could hear the rockets coming in
on Basra Palace, where he was.

General Petraeus and I were certain
that he was going to be overrun,

literally, personally.

In the middle of the battle,
General Petraeus was told

that the President of Iraq
in Baghdad

had received a message from Iran.

He said, "I've just come
back from a meeting

"with Qasem Soleimani,"

which just was a true jaw-dropper.

And he said, "And I have a message
for you from General Soleimani."

And he said, "It goes like this.

"General Petraeus, you should know
that I, Qasem Soleimani,

"control the policy for Iran

"with respect to Iraq,

"and, also, Syria, Afghanistan,

"Gaza, and so on."

And so, the point he was making was,

"You should deal with me.

"Forget all these others, forget
the Iranian diplomats,

"forget these others.
We should do a deal."

To some degree,
there was something to this,

because, if you really think
about it, I was the sheikh

of the strongest tribe in Iraq
at that time, in many respects.

Erm, that was the first time
that he came up on the radar,

saying, "Hey, guys,
let's talk about this."

Everything before that,
including the beginning

of this conflict,
was through the barrel of a gun,

until that was not quite
working so well for them.

The president looked at me
expectantly and asked what message

he should convey back
to Qasem Soleimani,

and I said,
"Tell him to pound sand."

I was not going to meet with some
one- or two-star general

who was leading elements
that were killing our soldiers,

and there's just no way that I was
going to sit down with him.

After nine days of fighting,

with American help,
the tables were turned in Basra.

The Shia militias were routed,

and Qasem Soleimani
reached out again.

ARCHIVE: Military operations
in Basra will cease

by the end of the week.

This uneasy deal comes after some
very secretive negotiations,

and there are reports
that Iranian officials

were involved in brokering...

In 2008, British troops
pulled out of Basra -

handing it back to Iraqi
government control.

But the city has remained
under the influence of Iran.

As General Petraeus used to say,

"An army of liberation
has a half-life,

"after which it becomes an army
of occupation,"

and so, the Iranians were merely
prompting and encouraging

the local Iraqis to get rid of us.
And, frankly, who can blame them?

Qasem Soleimani had emerged
a winner in the war in Iraq

against America and Britain.

But in the shifting sands
of the Middle East,

enemies would soon be
forced to become allies.

The summer of '14 was one
that anyone interested

in this region is always
going to remember.

The speed at which
Islamic State moved -

they were at the gates of Baghdad,

and they were at the gates of Erbil.

The Islamic State, or Daesh,
as the Iraqis call them,

seized huge swathes
of Northern Iraq.

They forced hundreds of thousands
of Iraqi government troops to flee.

It was a stunning
moment for all of us.

It was certainly a stunning moment
for the Iraqis themselves,

and it was certainly a jolt to us.

Everybody just said,
"Isis is coming to Erbil."

And a lot of families
were afraid

that if Isis came,
they will take the women,

they will cut the heads off the men,

they will take everything.

It was just trying
to escape from them.

The Kurds were then really
ringing the alarm bell,

trying to get Washington
to pay attention,

that this is not some
flash in the pan -

you have to act.

ARCHIVE: Iraq's second biggest city,
Mosul,

has been taken over by a group
of Islamist militants

who are allies...

After they took Mosul,
they got a lot of American weapons,

and we just had the old
Russian weapons.

We had no armoured vehicles.

We had no anti-tank.

We had no snipers.
We didn't have anything.

The Islamic State were another
Sunni extremist group -

the heirs to Al-Qaeda.

Qasem Soleimani knew they would
soon become a threat to Shia Iran.

His men quickly crossed the border
to help the Kurdish fighters.

There was two soldiers
who came to us.

They say, "We are Iranian soldiers."

They said, "What do you want?
What do you need?"

And I wrote down nine types
of weapons,

and I gave them back the list.

After two days, we got weapons.

This sniper is an M99...

..we got from Iran.

We never had it before.

It had a very good effect on Isis.

GUNFIRE

Even with their new weapons,

the Kurds could not hold back
the Islamic State.

The whole of Iraq
was now threatened.

The Iraqi government had to fall
back on the old Shia militias

which had killed so many British
troops during the occupation.

Qais Khazali had been released
from prison

and mobilised his group to fight.

Once again, Qasem Soleimani
was pulling the strings...

..but now he started
to emerge from the shadows.

He was here, he was there.
The joke we made,

it was like the Where's Waldo? book.

He was appearing in places
that he'd not appeared before,

at least overtly.

For a little guy who's out
there with no body armour,

who's 25 years old,
in a militia group, fighting,

how can you not rise
to the occasion when your boss,

who's, you know, the age
of your grandfather,

is in a shirt, walking
around the battle space

with gunfire going off?

It's an inspiring message
that this man is fearless

and we must follow him.

I do believe there's
a feeling of a guy like him

that he's fulfilling his destiny,
and if he's killed, he's killed.

They have a very different
way of looking at it -

that he is on a mission.

Perhaps, having taken some
media-exposure lessons,

he had found an occasion
where he could have his moments

in the sun after all those years of
being in the shadows and darkness.

ARCHIVE: RAF jets have carried
out their first air strikes

against self-styled Islamic State.

ARCHIVE: The United States
has confirmed

that it carried out 14 air
strikes overnight, with the help...

Britain and America finally joined
the fight against the Islamic State,

and found themselves, this time,

on the same side as Iran
and Qasem Soleimani.

Isis, which was this negative,
evil thing -

Soleimani now gets the role of being
the white knight against it.

Now, to a certain degree,
he comes out like an American ally,

but that was strange bedfellows
for a pretty narrow period.

The Iraqi Kurds now had an
embarrassment of riches,

which put them in an awkward spot.

Because we knew that, ultimately,
when the Islamic State was defeated,

there was going to have to be
an effort

to get the Shia militia
back on a leash,

to get them responding
to legitimate Iraqi authorities,

not to these Shia militia leaders -

some of whom were also
in the parliament -

but are basically on the payroll
of Qasem Soleimani.

It took five years and an
extraordinary global coalition

to drive the Islamic State
from Iraq.

The West may well have
Qasem Soleimani to thank for that.

From a figure in the shadows,

Qasem Soleimani has been transformed

into a revolutionary icon
in Iran and across the region.

The evolution of Qasem Soleimani
from the shadow commander

to the star of Saturday Night Live,
if you will,

has been a fascinating one.

Clearly he - and one would have to
assume - the Supreme Leader

have thought it was the time to give
him an actual face and a role.

It showed his influence
to be enormous

and, of course, you know, when
you're in that position -

the victorious general,
if you will -

that does amplify very considerably

the influence that you have.

In Iran, there are even animated
films celebrating Soleimani

as the commander of an imagined
battle for the Persian Gulf

against America.

Soleimani has become, in a way,

one of the sort of heroes
of ancient Iranian mythology.

He's become a modern-day
knight in shining armour,

who, by the sheer force
of will and his goodness,

has been able to banish all evil.
I mean, that's basically what it is.

Qasem Soleimani's
real-life victories

have not been confined to Iraq.

The shadow commander was a key
player during the long civil war

in neighbouring Syria.

ARCHIVE: There's been further
violence in Syria -

the latest clashes between
pro-democracy activists

and government forces.
The protests began six months ago.

CROWD CHANTS

When the trouble started in Syria,

there was one thing
we could be certain of -

that Iran would not let
the Assad government be overthrown.

He was their only ally,
the only one they could count on.

Syria, under the Assad family,

has been an ally of Iran
for decades.

Bashar al-Assad is part
of a minority sect

also linked to Shia Islam.

When his regime was on the brink,
Qasem Soleimani intervened.

Bashar al-Assad, at various times,
was really teetering on his throne.

And, first the Quds Force and some
Iranian forces came to the rescue.

Then they brought in
Lebanese Hezbollah

in very significant capabilities.

They brought in Shia militia from
countries that were in that region.

One of those militias
was led by Qais Khazali,

the scourge of British troops
in the Iraq War.

ARCHIVE: This will be remembered
as a crushing victory -

the rebellion against
President Assad in Aleppo is over.

I think Soleimani was critical
in saving the Assad regime.

It would have been unlikely
that the Assad regime

would have gotten the confidence
and, in some cases,

the competence to weather
those two or three years

where it really looked
like it was about to teeter.

Over eight gruelling years,
Assad's forces,

backed by Iran and Russia,
have held on to power in Syria.

Qasem Soleimani appeared
on the streets there

to claim victory.

Qasem Soleimani's strategic
master plan

has increased Iranian influence
over the Middle East.

In Iraq, the government is dominated
by the Shia majority,

with close links to Iran.

In Syria, Iran's ally, Assad,
still rules a shattered country.

And in Lebanon, the Shia militia -
Hezbollah - is growing in power.

I went to the director of the CIA

and, there, you could see unfolded
before you all of the activity

that was going on in the region.

As he was the principal architect

of the actions that were seeking

to solidify the so-called
Shia Crescent,

and trying to establish,
for the first time,

a ground line of communications
that would link Iran

with Lebanese Hezbollah,

without having to fly
everything over.

Soleimani now has his eye
on the ultimate target -

America's ally,
the Little Satan - Israel.

His strategy is the strategy
of Iran.

To build a corridor

which will link between Tehran

and the Syrian beach

on the Mediterranean Sea, via Iraq.

You can bring much more weapon
systems

than you can carry
in cargo aeroplanes.

In addition to it, it will help
them to encircle Israel.

Al-Quds is the Arabic
name for Jerusalem.

Qasem Soleimani is the commander
of the Quds - the Jerusalem Force.

Their aim - the liberation
of the Holy City

and the defeat of Israel.

Iranian officials called many times

to wipe Israel out of the map.

Of course, we will not
allow it to happen.

Israel faces Qasem Soleimani's
proxy forces

to the north and the south.

He's provided weapons
to Palestinian militants,

supported them in their
long struggle

against the Israeli occupation
of the West Bank and Gaza.

In Lebanon, the Israelis say
that Iranian technology

is flowing to Hezbollah,
its long-standing ally,

just as it once did to the
Shia militias in Iraq.

What they tried, lately, to do,
is to change the rockets

that Hezbollah have, in order to
make it much more accurate.

We have to pay attention to what's
going on in this front,

because Hezbollah has, today,

something like
120,000, 150,000 rockets.

Now, Qais Khazali,
Soleimani's old Iraqi friend,

has turned up
on the Lebanese border.

Should Israel fear your group?

Should they fear Iran?

Should they fear Qasem Soleimani?

The Golan Heights -

Syrian territory occupied
by Israel for 50 years.

It's a new front line in the north
between Israel and Iran.

General Nitzan Alon is leading
Israel's military operations

against Qasem Soleimani.

The Quds Force was determined
to entrench in Syria.

I think that they understand
that if they will build their bases

and their infrastructure in Syria,

no-one could push them
back from there.

Qasem Soleimani began to probe
Israel's defences from Syria.

A drone was launched -
armed, Israel says, with explosives.

And we took the shot.

ARCHIVE: Israel's Prime
Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu,

has launched a scathing attack
on Iran,

calling it the greatest
threat to our world.

ARCHIVE: ..and now their stand-off
runs right along Israel's border

with Syria, where Iran...

Iran denies that it sent
a drone into our airspace

to threaten our people.

Well, here's a piece
of that Iranian drone.

Or what's left of it
after we shot it down.

The Israelis attacked
the Quds Force base

they say launched the drone.

Since then, according to Israel,

they've carried out dozens of air
strikes in Syria

in response to Iranian missile
and rocket attacks.

Qasem Soleimani and the Quds Force
thought that they can deter Israel

by launching rockets
into the Golan Heights.

They tried to launch 32 rockets,

just to the area we are
sitting in right now.

We attacked back and we strike

most of the Quds Force
infrastructure it had.

ARCHIVE: Israel's military
says it's started hitting

Iranian targets in Syria...

ARCHIVE: ..says the
overnight operation

targeted the elite Quds Force of the
Iranian Revolutionary Guards...

INTERVIEWER: Do you think that Qasem
Soleimani has learned his lesson?

I think that he has underestimated
Israeli capabilities,

and maybe overestimated his
capabilities against Israel.

But I'm not sure that he
learned the lesson yet.

INTERVIEWER: Would Israel kill
Qasem Soleimani if Israel could?

I can only say, every terrorist -

and, by the way, he is a terrorist,

and Quds is on the list
of terror organisations -

so, every terrorist should
remember very vividly

that he might be a target,

and there is no immunity
to terrorists.

Today, there's a new
reality in the Middle East.

ARCHIVE: It's about the only use
they've got, now,

for American Coca-Cola bottles.

ARCHIVE: As the Islamic militants of
Isis overwhelm...

President Trump has declared

the fight against the Islamic State
has been won.

Roger! Requesting ammo resupply.
Over.

He's pulling troops
out of Syria and Iraq -

but he's put America's
old enemy on notice...

DONALD TRUMP: My administration
has acted decisively to confront

the world's leading state sponsor
of terror -

the radical regime in Iran.

It is a radical regime.

They do bad, bad things.

..and Qasem Soleimani is now
the face and voice of the enemy.

I see an adversary that is
continuing to operate

with relative impunity
in the region.

That's an enemy that
should be eliminated.

Has Qasem Soleimani ever
been on an American kill list?

Well, I obviously can't comment

whether Qasem Soleimani has ever
been on any kind of target list...

..but, I might note that he
certainly never set foot in Iraq,

much less did a selfie
with Shia militia in Iraq,

when I was commanding the surge.

So, perhaps, you might
have been tempted?

It would have been a wonderful thing
had Qasem Soleimani

ended up on the X, as they say.

America, you know, we, kind of
like dastardly villains to hate,

and he has occupied
that space very nicely.

He is the quintessence
of global evil.

Not a sparrow falls
that Qasem Soleimani

didn't personally shoot it down.

I don't think we should view
him as an evil person.

I think we should view him...
Just like I believe in my country,

I think Qasem Soleimani
believes in his country.

Just as I would propagate,
you know, the aims of mine,

he would do his.

We can play his game,
we can fight him.

But I think if we want peace
in the Middle East and the region,

we've got to understand where
he's coming from and what he wants,

unless you want to be
in a perpetual conflict with Iran.