Name: We Tracked Iran's Covert Military Unit on Social Media, Here's What We Found | Visual Investigations
Uploaded: 2020-03-25T07:47:49.000Z
Duration: 6 min 13 s
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Basic passive voice

Before he was killed in a U.S. drone strike,

with Iran’s leader, with Iraq’s former prime minister.

For years, Suleimani was an under-the-radar operator

He ran an elite military unit called the Quds Force.

It’s an arm of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps

that works to expand Iran’s influence in the Middle East

using covert military and intelligence tactics.

The elusive commander was spotted in the public eye

We combed through hundreds of images and videos,

many of them propaganda from Suleimani’s

These appearances help paint a more complete picture

that Iran calls the “axis of resistance.”

It stretches through Iraq and Syria to Lebanon.

These are rare images that appear to have

They show Suleimani with Hassan Nasrallah, who

is the leader of Hezbollah, a Lebanon-based militant group.

Hezbollah is the archetype for how the Quds Force operates.

They helped found the group and fund it to this day.

as a political party, and as a military threat

These are Hezbollah fighters posing with Iranian weapons.

in the region, along this corridor we told you about.

This photo from 2013 reveals just how strong the bond is

at a funeral for Suleimani’s mother in Tehran.

Two years later, that Hezbollah member died,

and Suleimani himself made the trip to Beirut

took the Hezbollah playbook and mimicked it in Iraq.

Here he is in 2015 with Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis,

called Kataib Hezbollah, also known as K.H.

were seen frequently together, and the bond

is strong here, too, judging by this propaganda video.

Similar to Hezbollah, K.H. is active in politics

and helped push Iran’s interests in Baghdad.

and one of their main targets over the years

We found propaganda footage of K.H. attacks

And K.H. also joined the fight against ISIS, which Iran

These were brutal campaigns, where civilians were often

K.H. would later be seen during the recent attack on the

That episode led up to Suleimani’s killing,

and the other senior commander to die in the attack

was none other than K.H.’s leader: Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis.

is Syria, the missing piece in Iran’s strategic corridor.

in Syria, fighting to help Syrian President Bashar al-Assad

Syria was also the only place we actually

saw Iranian operatives besides Suleimani in action.

Here, one of them describes how they train fighters in Syria.

But this video wasn’t meant to be released.

Remember, it’s all part of the playbook.

They stay under the radar and do most of their work

The eventual fall of Aleppo became a key turning point

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We Tracked Iran's Covert Military Unit on Social Media, Here's What We Found | Visual Investigations

reveal

devastating

conflict

sensation