Iraq's prime minister said on Thursday that he welcomed Iranian assistance in Iraq's battle against Islamic State but suggested unease with the prominence of a top Iranian general, who has been widely seen in photos from Iraq's battlefields.
Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani, commander of Iran's al-Quds brigade of the elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, was almost an invisible man until Islamic State's Sunni jihadis overran cities in northern and central Iraq last year.
But photos of Soleimani, whose force engages in operations outside of Iran, are now commonplace. He was even seen directing fighting in the battle to recapture from Islamic State the Sunni city of Tikrit, birthplace of Saddam Hussein.