Soleimani - another perspective: Arch Terrorist or Ally? Three Times Soleimani Saved American Lives https://sputniknews.com/world/202001061077960305-arch-terrorist-or-inadverte... ... Soleimani is 2015 fighting along American soldiers in Iraq to kill ISIS fighters.. now killed by Trump on all sorts of fabrications. Our foreign policy is psychotic https://pic.twitter.com/iTHppkwhdU ... In late 2001, after a group of 19 Saudi, Emirati, Lebanese and Egyptian hijackers slammed commercial airliners into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, killing nearly 3,000 Americans, US officials quietly met with Iranian diplomats coordinated by Soleimani in Geneva. Iran, a long-time enemy of al-Qaeda and its leader, Osama bin Laden, agreed to provide the United States with valuable intelligence on the terrorist group, including the locations of suspected al-Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan. Iran was also eager to assist the US in its campaign against the Taliban, since the radical fundamentalist movement was known for its harsh treatment of Afghanistan’s Shia minority, and had attacked and killed 11 Iranian diplomats at the consulate in Mazar-i-Sharif in 1998. In November 2001, Quds Force special forces and US Army Rangers and Delta Force units entered the city of Herat, northwestern Afghanistan, igniting an anti-terrorist insurrection led by Northern Alliance. The unprecedented operation led to the collapse of Taliban control of Herat, and soon the group was toppled from power across the rest of Afghanistan. The Quds Force was known to have provided material support to Ahmad Shah Massoud, leader of the US-allied Northern Alliance, going back to at least the mid-1990s. Iranian intelligence services continued to provide the US with intelligence until January 2002, when US President George W Bush added Iran to his ‘Axis of Evil’ list of possible regime change targets during his State of the Union address. ... How did Soleimani’s efforts in the Syrian conflict save American lives? For one thing, they helped to tie down tens of thousands of radicals from Daesh (ISIS),* al-Qaeda, and a host of other terrorist groups which could have otherwise scattered to Western countries to conduct Paris or Brussels-style terror attacks. Furthermore, they allowed the US to limit its anti-Daesh operations in Syria to aerial support and limited on-the-ground assistance to Kurdish militias, meaning fewer US service members’ lives put at risk. ... Whether against the Taliban and al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, or against Daesh and other terrorist groups in Syria and Iraq, Gen. Soleimani and the Quds Force have consistently fought the same Sunni Islamist Wahhabi fundamentalist forces which have targeted US forces across the Middle East and around the world, and which have vowed to destroy the West and America through acts of terror. By approving Soleimani’s assassination, President Trump has not only dealt a blow to the forces fighting Daesh and al-Qaeda, but put an irreversible end to the informal, often begrudging, highly unlikely but hugely successful partnership between Iran and the US in the fight against terrorism, and that may put American lives at risk.