It seems there was some controversy in the news during January regarding the health of Iranian General Qassem Soleimani.  He is the head of the Al Quds Force, the international arm of the IRGC of Iran.  If the second horn is going to be a single man, he is one of two leading candidates right now to be that man.  The other is General Ali Jafari, head of all the IRGC.

These two men, Jafari and Soleimani, report directly to the supreme leader.  I’ve shown how the leadership of the IRGC seems to be an excellent fulfillment of Daniel 8:3b: “One of the horns was longer than the other but grew up later.” (NIV)  I wrote about this here and here.

Soleimani has been working in the background in Iraq, keeping ISIS from expanding into Iraq and keeping the stalemate going with ISIS.  Iraqis have said that if it wasn’t for Iran’s help led by Soleimani, ISIS would have ended Iraq by now.

The elusive Major General Qassem Soleimani seen in a meeting in Tehran in 2013.

News Reports

It was back in mid-January that DEBKAfile reported that Soleimani was injured in Iraq in an attack by ISIS.  Some readers also pointed this out.  However, I held back because they sometimes exaggerate things that happen along the lines of their wishful thinking, being a US-based secular Jewish outlet.  I don’t know why they feel they need to do this, they just do.  (And please don’t misunderstand – I support Israel and the Jews but in every group there will be some that earn less trust than others.)  DEBKAfile was the only media source for the story.  Neither Jerusalem News nor the Times of Israel was reporting it.

The next day, Iranian media reported that Soleimani was in fine health, apparently as a response to DEBKA’s story.  I thought this helped the situation little, for though it might show DEBKA mis-reported, the Iranian media tends to be by far a greater exaggerator.  There still needed to be some proof one way or another.

We received it toward the end of January.  The Times of Israel reported that Soleimani was sighted at the grave of a close friend of his who was indeed killed by an ISIS attack.   He travelled to Lebanon to visit the grave, with Lebanese media reporting him there.

A snapshot from Iranian TV showing Soleimani at the grave of a friend in Lebanon this past week.

So General Soleimani appears to indeed be in full health and reports of his injury are an exaggeration.

The Eight

This whole storyline begs the question, what would happen if Soleimani was indeed killed?  There are a total of eight men – eight leaders – to watch for in the course of the Signposts prior to the Tribulation.  They are all shown in their roles in Daniel 8, as the eight horns in that vision.

In the Second Signpost, it is the Iranian supreme leader as the first horn of the Persian ram.  The second horn of the ram is likely the leadership of the IRGC and who the exact party is will be revealed soon.  The leading candidates are General Ali Jafari, the head of the IRGC, and the other is Soleimani.  If something happens to either one of them, another from the command core of the IRGC will take his place.

In the Third Signpost there is the third figure, the prominent horn of the goat, who is the leader of Turkey.  Currently this is President Erdogan.  In the Fourth Signpost there are the four leaders who will each lead one of the four nations to emerge from the great Sunni Confederacy.  The eighth of course is the man who will be Antichrist, the little horn that grows out of one of the four horns.

There are a total of eight men to watch for in the course of the Signposts prior to the Tribulation.  There are 8 leaders to watch in Daniel 8.  Since the Bible tells us they will exist, we should watch for them just as we watch the nations they lead.

Categories: In The News, Signpost #2: Iran

Tags: Al Quds Force, Ali Jafari, Daniel 8, General Soleimani, IRGC, persian ram, Qassem Soleimani, Second Signpost, supreme leader