Thread by @heytherehaIey

After the Iranian general Qassim Suleimani was killed in a U.S. airstrike, we combed through hundreds of images and videos of him. We wanted to know more about his unit, the Quds Force. It’s extremely covert — but sightings of Suleimani can act as clues. nyti.ms/2RRbfgz

The team compiled a spreadsheet of sightings of Suleimani, going back to the 1980s when he served in the Iran-Iraq War. But we noticed that the “shadow commander” really started popping up around 2014, right after ISIS took Mosul.

We took a closer look at some of these sightings and details in the visuals — militia insignia, weapons, locations. And @ntabrizy spoke to experts to understand what these details tell us about Suleimani and the Quds Force.

@ntabrizy Some details didn’t make it into the video. In this footage, we know Suleimani is speaking to fighters from Harakat Hezbollah al-Nujaba. And @trbrtc confirmed it was filmed in front of the mosque in Al-Hadher, after the town was recaptured from Syrian opposition forces.

@ntabrizy @trbrtc Another Iranian-backed militia that reportedly participated in that campaign in Al-Hadher was Liwa Fatemiyoun. It’s an Afghan Shia militia. And we didn’t get to show this in the video either, but Suleimani was also seen with them — quite frequently.

@ntabrizy @trbrtc We also looked into the attack on the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad. There we saw not just KH (as mentioned in the video), but also the flags of Saraya al-Khorasani, Kata'ib Sayyid al-Shuhada, Kata'ib al-Imam Ali, and Quwat al-Shaheed al-Sadr, among many others.

@ntabrizy @trbrtc Each detail and Suleimani sighting provides insight into how the Quds Force operates — through a network of partner and proxy forces along a corridor that stretches from Iran all the way to Lebanon. Watch the full video here: nyti.ms/2RRbfgz

@ntabrizy @trbrtc This was a big one from a lot of us — thanks to @trbrtc, @ntabrizy, @ckoettl, @NatalieReneau, @DrewJordan_NYT, @sameenamin, @markscheffler, and more.