Iranian women held by US immigration not Qassem Soleimani's relatives: Report

Two women reported to be relatives of assassinated Iranian military commander Qassem Soleimani who were arrested in the United States are not, in fact, related to him, according to a news report.

Hamideh Soleimani Afshar and her daughter Sarina were arrested in early April after their residency permits were rescinded. This came after far-right campaigner Laura Loomer claimed they were related to the late Quds Force leader on social media and said she reported the women to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) for “posting content sympathetic to the Iranian regime and Ayatollah”.

However, according to Iranian birth records, identification papers, a family will and other personal documents seen by the US-based website Drop Site News, they are not related to Soleimani, even distantly.

Soleimani Afshar was, according to the outlet, involved in anti-Islamic Republic protests in the 1990s and 2000s and spent a week in prison for her activities before moving to the US.

Soleimani, who led the Quds Force faction of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), was killed in a US drone strike while he was in the Iraqi capital, Baghdad, in January 2020.

His targeted convoy was also carrying a number of senior Iraqi Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF) leaders. 

The deputy head of the PMF, Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, also died in the attack.

Treatment 'even worse' than in Iran

The new report backs up comments made by Soleimani's daughter Zeinab in early April, in which she denied any connection to the two arrested women.

At the time of Soleimani Afshar's arrest, the State Department also said she had publicly praised the Islamic Republic.

"As identified by both press reporting and her own social media commentary, Soleimani Afshar is an outspoken supporter of the totalitarian, terrorist regime in Iran," the department said.

It also claimed she had "praised the new Iranian Supreme Leader" Mojtaba Khamenei and "denounced America as the 'Great Satan'".

However, according to Drop Site News, while she was opposed to monarchist leader Reza Pahlavi and opposed Donald Trump's war on Iran, Soleimani Afshar and her daughter are both dissidents and had to flee Iran for their safety.

“We came to America to seek calm and to feel safe and protected from that regime,” Soleimani Afshar told the outlet, speaking from the detention centre.

“And now we’re being treated almost the same – even worse than there. We’ve been here for three weeks now. I don’t know where to go from here.” 

Her daughter Sarina told Drop Site News that her mother – who suffers from autoimmune haemolytic anaemia – was not receiving treatment and was regularly in and out of consciousness, with dangerously low haemoglobin levels.

She said her mother recently passed out at the detention centre and was left unconscious on the floor for over 10 minutes.

“She’s kind of a passionate person overall, and she thought that she was going to come here and be able to talk freely when she’s been threatened and imprisoned in Iran for speaking about politics, and now she’s again in prison for speaking out about politics,” Sarina said.