A look back over nine years of the Syrian Civil War, an inextricable conflict, like a black box, due to the competing interests of the many factions in presence and those of the foreign powers.
Qasem Soleimani, also transliterated as Qassem Suleimani or Qassim Soleimani, was an Iranian major general in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and, from 1998 until his death, commander of its Quds Force, a division primarily responsible for extraterritorial military and clandestine operations.