Two weeks ago, Sayyed Razi Mousavi was a ghost on the internet. He left no mark on search engines or in coverage of Iran’s military and the Middle East.
But in the Syrian capital Damascus, Mousavi’s 30-year presence was an open secret. He had been the right-hand man of General Qassem Soleimani, the commander of the Iranian Quds Force, the Revolutionary Guards’ branch for operations outside Iran.
Mousavi was the liaison with the Assad regime, as it killed hundreds of thousands in putting down dissenters after March 2011, as well as with Lebanon’s Hezbollah. In 2021, he became Iran’s senior commander in Syria.
