Iran president declares end of Daesh

BEIRUT: Iranian President Hassan Rouhani declared the “end of Daesh” on Tuesday in an address broadcast live on state TV.

Message

A senior commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, Major General Qassem Sulaimani, also declared the end of Daesh in a message sent to the country’s supreme leader Tuesday which was published on Sepah News, the news site of the Guards.

Quds Force

Videos and pictures of Sulaimani, who commands the Quds Force, the branch of the Guards responsible for operations outside of Iran’s borders, at frontline positions in battles against Daesh in Iraq and Syria have been posted frequently by Iranian media in recent years.

Last week, Iranian media published pictures of Sulaimani at Al Bu Kamal in eastern Syria, a town which he said Tuesday was the last territory retaken from Daesh control in the region.

Revolutionary Guards

The Revolutionary Guards, Iran’s most powerful military force which also oversees an economic empire worth billions of dollars, has been fighting in support of Syrian president Bashar Al Assad and the central government in Baghdad for several years.

More than 1,000 members of the Guards, including senior commanders, have been killed in Syria and Iraq.