title: Martial arts

text: The mid to late 19th century marks the beginning of the history of martial arts as modern sports developed out of earlier traditional fighting systems. In Europe, this concerns the developments of boxing, wrestling and fencing as sports. In Japan, the same period marks the formation of the modern forms of judo, jujutsu, karate, and kendo (among others) based on revivals of old schools of Edo period martial arts which had been suppressed during the Meiji Restoration In 1882, Kano Jigoro established the Kodokan School of judo which began the sport of judo. Kano Jigoro had gathered the old knowledge of jujutsu before establishing his school of judo.


title: Martial arts

text: Modern muay Thai rules date to the 1920s. In China, the modern history of martial arts begins in the Nanjing decade (1930s) following the foundation of the Central Guoshu Institute in 1928 under the Kuomintang government.


title: Martial arts

text: Western interest in Asian martial arts arises towards the end of the 19th century, due to the increase in trade between the United States with China and Japan. Relatively few Westerners actually practiced the arts, considering it to be mere performance. Edward William Barton-Wright, a railway engineer who had studied jujutsu while working in Japan between 1894 and 1897, was the first man known to have taught Asian martial arts in Europe. He also founded an eclectic style named Bartitsu which combined jujutsu, judo, wrestling, boxing, savate and stick fighting.


title: Martial arts

text: Fencing and Greco-Roman wrestling was included in the 1896 Summer Olympics. FILA Wrestling World Championships and Boxing at the Summer Olympics were introduced in 1904. The tradition of awarding championship belts in wrestling and boxing can be traced to the Lonsdale Belt, introduced in 1909.


title: Martial arts

text: The International Boxing Association was established in 1920. World Fencing Championships have been held since 1921.


title: Martial arts

text: As Western influence grew in Asia a greater number of military personnel spent time in China, Japan and South Korea during World War II and the Korean War and were exposed to local fighting styles. Jujutsu, judo and karate first became popular among the mainstream from the 1950s–1960s. Due in part to Asian and Hollywood martial arts movies, most modern American martial arts are either Asian-derived or Asian influenced. The term kickboxing (キックボクシング) was created by the Japanese boxing promoter Osamu Noguchi for a variant of muay Thai and karate that he created in the 1950s. American kickboxing was developed in the 1970s, as a combination of boxing and karate. Taekwondo was developed in the context of the Korean War in the 1950s.


title: Martial arts

text: The later 1960s and 1970s witnessed an increased media interest in Chinese martial arts, influenced by martial artist Bruce Lee. Bruce Lee is credited as one of the first instructors to openly teach Chinese martial arts to Westerners. World Judo Championships have been held since 1956, Judo at the Summer Olympics was introduced in 1964. Karate World Championships were introduced in 1970.


title: Martial arts

text: The "kung fu wave" of Hong Kong action cinema in the 1970s, especially Bruce Lee films, popularized martial arts in global popular culture. A number of mainstream films produced during the 1980s also contributed significantly to the perception of martial arts in Western popular culture. These include "The Karate Kid" (1984) and "Bloodsport" (1988). This era produced some Hollywood action stars with martial arts background, such as Jean-Claude Van Damme and Chuck Norris.


title: Martial arts

text: Also during the 20th century, a number of martial arts were adapted for self-defense purposes for military hand-to-hand combat. World War II combatives, KAPAP (1930s) and Krav Maga (1950s) in Israel, Systema in Soviet-era Russia, and Sanshou in the People's Republic of China are examples of such systems. The US military de-emphasized hand-to-hand combat training during the Cold War period, but revived it with the introduction of LINE in 1989.


title: Martial arts

text: In 1993, the first Pancrase event was held in Japan. The K-1 rules of kickboxing were introduced, based on 1980s Seidokaikan karate.


title: Martial arts

text: During the 1990s, Brazilian jiu-jitsu became popular and proved to be effective in mixed martial arts (MMA) competitions such as the UFC and PRIDE.


title: Martial arts

text: Jackie Chan and Jet Li are prominent martial artists who have become major movie figures. Their popularity and media presence has been at the forefront for promoting Chinese martial arts since the late 20th and early 21st centuries.


title: Martial arts

text: With the continual discovery of more medieval and Renaissance fighting manuals, the practice of Historical European Martial Arts and other Western Martial Arts have been growing in popularity across the United States and Europe.


title: Martial arts

text: On 29 November 2011, UNESCO inscribed Taekkyon onto its Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity List.


title: Martial arts

text: Many styles of Indian martial arts were banned by the colonial authorities during the period of British rule in India, which led to a decline in their popularity. Some, such as Kalaripayattu, did not undergo such declines since they were mostly practised in areas of the Indian subcontinent outside direct British control. Other Indian martial art, such as Silambam, while not widely practiced in India, continue to be practiced in other countries in the Indian cultural sphere such as Indonesia and Malaysia. Many other Indian martial arts such as Mardhani Khel and Paika Akhada survived by practitioners practicing the art in secret, or by telling the colonial authorities that it was a form of dance. While many regional Indian martial arts forms are fading into obscurity, martial arts such as Gatka and Kalaripayattu are experiencing a gradual resurgence.


title: Martial arts

text: Testing or evaluation is important to martial artists of many disciplines who wish to determine their progression or own level of skill in specific contexts. Students often undergo periodic testing and grading by their own teacher in order to advance to a higher level of recognized achievement, such as a different belt color or title. The type of testing used varies from system to system but may include forms or sparring.


title: Martial arts

text: Various forms and sparring are commonly used in martial art exhibitions and tournaments. Some competitions pit practitioners of different disciplines against each other using a common set of rules, these are referred to as mixed martial arts competitions. Rules for sparring vary between art and organization but can generally be divided into "light-contact", "medium-contact", and "full-contact" variants, reflecting the amount of force that should be used on an opponent.


title: Martial arts

text: These types of sparring restrict the amount of force that may be used to hit an opponent, in the case of light sparring this is usually to 'touch' contact, e.g. a punch should be 'pulled' as soon as or before contact is made. In medium-contact (sometimes referred to as semi-contact) the punch would not be 'pulled' but not hit with full force. As the amount of force used is restricted, the aim of these types of sparring is not to knock out an opponent; a point system is used in competitions.


title: Martial arts

text: A referee acts to monitor for fouls and to control the match, while judges mark down scores, as in boxing. Particular targets may be prohibited, certain techniques may be forbidden (such as headbutting or groin hits), and fighters may be required to wear protective equipment on their head, hands, chest, groin, shins or feet. Some grappling arts, such as aikido, use a similar method of compliant training that is equivalent to light or medium contact.


title: Martial arts

text: In some styles (such as fencing and some styles of taekwondo sparring), competitors score points based on the landing of a single technique or strike as judged by the referee, whereupon the referee will briefly stop the match, award a point, then restart the match. Alternatively, sparring may continue with the point noted by the judges. Some critics of point sparring feel that this method of training teaches habits that result in lower combat effectiveness. Lighter-contact sparring may be used exclusively, for children or in other situations when heavy contact would be inappropriate (such as beginners), medium-contact sparring is often used as training for full contact.


title: Martial arts

text: Full-contact sparring or competition, where strikes or techniques are not pulled but used with full force as the name implies, has a number of tactical differences from light and medium-contact sparring. It is considered by some to be requisite in learning realistic unarmed combat.


title: Martial arts

text: In full-contact sparring, the aim of a competitive match is to knock out the opponent or to force the opponent to submit.


title: Martial arts

text: Where scoring takes place it may be a subsidiary measure, only used if no clear winner has been established by other means; in some competitions, such as the UFC 1, there was no scoring, though most now use some form of judging as a backup. Due to these factors, full-contact matches tend to be more aggressive in character, but rule sets may still mandate the use of protective equipment, or limit the techniques allowed.


title: Martial arts

text: Nearly all mixed martial arts organizations such as UFC, Pancrase, Shooto use a form of full-contact rules as do professional boxing organizations and K-1. Kyokushin karate requires advanced practitioners to engage in bare-knuckled, full-contact sparring allowing kicks, knees and punching although punching to the head is disallowed while wearing only a karate "gi" and groin protector. Brazilian jiu-jitsu and judo matches do not allow striking, but are full-contact in the sense that full force is applied in the permitted grappling and submission techniques. Competitions held by World Taekwondo requires the use of Headgear and padded vest, but are full contact in the sense that full force is applied to strikes to the head and body, and win by knockout is possible.


title: Martial arts

text: Martial arts have crossed over into sports when forms of sparring become competitive, becoming a sport in its own right that is dissociated from the original combative origin, such as with western fencing. The Summer Olympic Games includes judo, taekwondo, western archery, boxing, javelin, wrestling and fencing as events, while Chinese wushu recently failed in its bid to be included, but is still actively performed in tournaments across the world. Practitioners in some arts such as kickboxing and Brazilian jiu-jitsu often train for sport matches, whereas those in other arts such as aikido generally spurn such competitions. Some schools believe that competition breeds better and more efficient practitioners, and gives a sense of good sportsmanship. Others believe that the rules under which competition takes place have diminished the combat effectiveness of martial arts or encourage a kind of practice which focuses on winning trophies rather than a focus such as cultivating a particular moral character.


title: Martial arts

text: The question of "which is the best martial art" has led to inter style competitions fought with very few rules allowing a variety of fighting styles to enter with few limitations. This was the origin of the first Ultimate Fighting Championship tournament (later renamed UFC 1: The Beginning) in the USA inspired by the Brazilian Vale tudo tradition and along with other minimal rule competitions, most notably those from Japan such as Shooto and Pancrase, have evolved into the combat sport of Mixed Martial Arts (MMA).


title: Martial arts

text: Some martial artists compete in non-sparring competitions such as breaking or choreographed routines of techniques such as poomse, kata and aka, or modern variations of the martial arts which include dance-influenced competitions such as tricking. Martial traditions have been influenced by governments to become more sport-like for political purposes; the central impetus for the attempt by the People's Republic of China in transforming Chinese martial arts into the committee-regulated sport of wushu was suppressing what they saw as the potentially subversive aspects of martial training, especially under the traditional system of family lineages.


title: Martial arts

text: Martial arts training aims to result in several benefits to trainees, such as their physical, mental, emotional and spiritual health.


title: Martial arts

text: Through systematic practice in the martial arts a person's physical fitness may be boosted (strength, stamina, speed, flexibility, movement coordination, etc.) as the whole body is exercised and the entire muscular system is activated.


title: Martial arts

text: Beyond contributing to physical fitness, martial arts training also has benefits for mental health, contributing to self-esteem, self-control, emotional and spiritual well-being. For this reason, a number of martial arts schools have focused purely on therapeutic aspects, de-emphasizing the historical aspect of self-defense or combat completely.


title: Martial arts

text: According to Bruce Lee, martial arts also have the nature of an art, since there is emotional communication and complete emotional expression.


title: Martial arts

text: Some traditional martial concepts have seen new use within modern military training. Perhaps the most recent example of this is point shooting which relies on muscle memory to more effectively use a firearm in a variety of awkward situations, much the way an iaidoka would master movements with their sword.


title: Martial arts

text: During the World War II era William E. Fairbairn and Eric A. Sykes were recruited by the Special Operations Executive (SOE) to teach their martial art of Defendu (itself drawing on Western boxing and Jujutsu) and pistol shooting to UK, US, and Canadian special forces. The book "Kill or Get Killed", written by Colonel Rex Applegate, was based on the Defendu taught by Sykes and Fairbairn. Both Fairbairn's "Get Tough" and Appelgate's "Kill or Get Killed" became classic works on hand-to-hand combat.


title: Martial arts

text: Traditional hand-to-hand, knife, and spear techniques continue to see use in the composite systems developed for today's wars. Examples of this include European Unifight, the US Army's Combatives system developed by Matt Larsen, the Israeli army's KAPAP and Krav Maga, and the US Marine Corps's "Marine Corps Martial Arts Program" (MCMAP). Unarmed dagger defenses identical to those found in the manual of Fiore dei Liberi and the Codex Wallerstein were integrated into the U.S. Army's training manuals in 1942


title: Martial arts

text: and continue to influence today's systems along with other traditional systems such as eskrima and silat.


title: Martial arts

text: The rifle-mounted bayonet which has its origin in the spear, has seen use by the United States Army, the United States Marine Corps, and the British Army as recently as the Iraq War.


title: Martial arts

text: Many martial arts are also seen and used in Law Enforcement hand-to-hand training. For example, the Tokyo Riot Police's use of aikido.


title: Martial arts

text: Martial arts since the 1970s has become a significant industry, a subset of the wider sport industry (including cinema and sports television).


title: Martial arts

text: Web Japan (sponsored by the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs) claims there are 50 million karate practitioners worldwide.


title: Martial arts

text: The South Korean government in 2009 published an estimate that taekwondo is practiced by 70 million people in 190 countries.


title: Martial arts

text: The wholesale value of martial arts related sporting equipment shipped in the United States was estimated at US$314 million in 2007; participation in the same year was estimated at 6.9 million (ages 6 or older, 2% of US population). R. A. Court, CEO of Martial Arts Channel, stated the total revenue of the US martial arts industry at US$40 billion and the number of US practitioners at 30 million in 2003.


title: Martial arts

text: Martial arts equipment can include that which is used for conditioning, protection and weapons. Specialized conditioning equipment can include breaking boards, dummy partners such as the wooden dummy, and targets such as punching bags and the makiwara. Protective equipment for sparring and competition includes boxing gloves, headgear and mouthguards.


title: Martial arts

text: Asian martial arts experienced a surge of popularity in the West during the 1970s, and the rising demand resulted in numerous low quality or fraudulent schools. Fueled by fictional depictions in martial arts movies, this led to the ninja craze of the 1980s in the United States. There were also numerous fraudulent ads for martial arts training programs, inserted into comic books circa the 1960s and 1970s, which were read primarily by adolescent boys.


title: Martial arts

text: In the seventies, lower ranks (kyu) began to be given colorful belts to show progress. This proved to be commercially viable and colored-belt systems were adopted in many martial arts degree mills (also known as "McDojos" and "belt factories") as a means to generate additional cash. This was covered in the "" (June 2010).


title: Qasem Soleimani

text: Qasem Soleimani (, ; 11 March 19573January 2020) was an Iranian military officer who served in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). From 1998 until his assassination in 2020, he was the commander of the Quds Force, an IRGC division primarily responsible for extraterritorial and clandestine military operations. In his later years, he was considered by some analysts to be the right-hand man of the Supreme Leader of Iran, Ali Khamenei, as well as the second-most powerful person in Iran behind him.


title: Qasem Soleimani

text: As a civilian, Soleimani initially worked in construction before joining the IRGC during the Islamic Revolution in 1979. He assembled and led a company of soldiers when the Iran–Iraq War began in September 1980, eventually rising through the ranks to become the commander of the 41st Tharallah Division in his 20s. He was later involved in extraterritorial operations, and in the late 1990s became commander of the IRGC Quds Force. Following the September 11 attacks on the United States, Iranian diplomats under his direction cooperated with U.S. forces in Afghanistan to fight the Taliban. Soleimani also provided extensive assistance to Hezbollah in Lebanon. In 2012, following the outbreak of the Syrian Civil War, Soleimani helped bolster the Government of Syria and its president, Bashar al-Assad, a key Iranian ally. He ran Iran's operations in the Syrian Civil War and helped plan and organize the Russian military intervention in Syria. Following the militant expansion of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant in 2014, Soleimani coordinated and assisted Kurdish Peshmerga and Shia militia forces in Iraq. He masterminded Iran's intervention in Iraq and had a significant role in Iran's fight against ISIL.


title: Qasem Soleimani

text: Soleimani was amongst the most popular personalities in Iran, viewed by many as a "selfless hero fighting Iran's enemies", by others as a "murderer". Soleimani was personally sanctioned by the United Nations and the European Union, and was designated as a terrorist by the United States in 2005.


title: Qasem Soleimani

text: Soleimani was assassinated in a targeted American drone strike on 3January 2020 in Baghdad, Iraq, on the orders of U.S. President Donald Trump. The strike was strongly condemned by some, including the Iranian government, and a mass multi-city funeral was held in both Iraq and Iran for Soleimani and other casualties caused by the drone strike. Hours after his burial on 7January 2020, the Iranian military launched missiles against U.S. military bases in Iraq; while there were no deaths in the second attack, the Pentagon reported that 110 American troops were wounded in the strikes.


title: Qasem Soleimani

text: Soleimani was born on 11 March 1957, in the village of Qanat-e Malek, Kerman Province. He left school at the age of 13 and moved to the city of Kerman to work on a construction site to help repay his father's agricultural debts. In 1975, he began working as a contractor for the Kerman Water Organization. When not at work, he spent his time with weight training in local gyms, or attending the sermons of Hojjat Kamyab, a preacher and a protégé of Ali Khamenei, who according to Soleimani encouraged him to "revolutionary activities".


title: Qasem Soleimani

text: Soleimani joined the Revolutionary Guard (IRGC) in 1979 following the Iranian Revolution, which saw the shah fall and Ayatollah Khomeini take power. Reportedly, his training was minimal, but he advanced rapidly. Early in his career as a guardsman, he helped to prevent a Kurdish uprising in northwestern Iran.


title: Qasem Soleimani

text: On 22 September 1980, when Saddam Hussein launched an invasion of Iran, setting off the Iran–Iraq War (1980–1988), Soleimani joined the battlefield serving as the leader of a military company, consisting of men from Kerman whom he assembled and trained. He quickly earned a reputation for bravery, and rose through the ranks because of his role in successful operations to retake the lands Iraq had occupied, and eventually became the commander of the 41st Tharallah Division while still in his 20s, participating in most major operations. He was mostly stationed at the southern front. He was seriously injured in Operation Tariq-ol-Qods. In a 1990 interview, he mentioned Operation Fath-ol-Mobin as "the best" operation he participated in and "very memorable", due to its difficulties yet positive outcome. He was also engaged in leading and organizing irregular warfare missions deep inside Iraq by the Ramadan Headquarters. It was at this point that Soleimani established relations with Kurdish Iraqi leaders and the Shia Badr Organization, both opposed to Iraq's Saddam Hussein.


title: Qasem Soleimani

text: On 17 July 1985, Soleimani opposed the IRGC leadership's plan to deploy forces to two islands in western Arvand Rud, on the Shatt al-Arab River.


title: Qasem Soleimani

text: After the war, during the 1990s, he was an IRGC commander in Kerman Province. In this region, which is relatively close to Afghanistan, Afghan-grown opium travels to Turkey and on to Europe. Soleimani's military experience helped him earn a reputation as a successful fighter against drug trafficking.


title: Qasem Soleimani

text: During the 1999 student protests in Tehran, Soleimani was one of the IRGC officers who signed a letter to President Mohammad Khatami warning that if he did not suppress the protests, the military would, and suggesting Khatami would be deposed. According to the former IRGC commander, Mohammad Ali Jafari, Soleimani also intervened in the 2009 protests to "control the insecurity and riots".


title: Qasem Soleimani

text: The exact date of his appointment as commander of the IRGC's Quds Force is not clear, but Ali Alfoneh cites it as between 10 September 1997 and 21 March 1998. He was considered one of the possible successors to the post of commander of the IRGC when General Yahya Rahim Safavi left this post in 2007. In 2008, he led a group of Iranian investigators looking into the death of Imad Mughniyah. Soleimani helped arrange a ceasefire between the Iraqi Army and Mahdi Army in March 2008.


title: Qasem Soleimani

text: Following the September 11 attacks in 2001, senior U.S. State Department official Ryan Crocker flew to Geneva to meet with Iranian diplomats who were under the leadership of Soleimani with the purpose of collaborating to destroy the Taliban. This collaboration was instrumental in defining the targets of air bombing operations in Afghanistan and in capturing key Al-Qaeda operatives, but suddenly ended in January 2002, when President George W. Bush named Iran as part of the "Axis of evil" in his State of the Union address.


title: Qasem Soleimani

text: Soleimani strengthened the relationship between Quds Force and Hezbollah upon his appointment, and supported the latter by sending in operatives to retake southern Lebanon. In an interview aired in October 2019, he said he was in Lebanon during the 2006 Israel–Hezbollah War to manage the conflict.


title: Qasem Soleimani

text: In 2009, "The Economist" stated on the basis of a leaked report that Christopher R. Hill and General Raymond T. Odierno (America's two most senior officials in Baghdad at the time) met with Soleimani in the office of Iraq's president, Jalal Talabani, but withdrew the story after Hill and Odierno denied the occurrence of the meeting.


title: Qasem Soleimani

text: On 24 January 2011, Soleimani was promoted to Major General (Sarlaskar) by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. Khamenei was described as having a close relationship with him, calling Soleimani a "living martyr" and helping him financially.


title: Qasem Soleimani

text: Soleimani was described by an ex-CIA operative, responsible for clandestine operations, as "the single most powerful operative in the Middle East today" and the principal military strategist and tactician in Iran's effort to deter Western influence and promote the expansion of Shia and Iranian influence throughout the Middle East. In Iraq, as the commander of the Quds Force, he was believed to have strongly influenced the organization of the Iraqi government, notably supporting the election of previous Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki.


title: Qasem Soleimani

text: A report issued, late January 2020, by government factions close to IRGC and published by Fars News Agency reveals some of Quds force's infiltration, under the command of Qassem Soleimani, in other countries. The 1992–95 Bosnian War is brought as an example.


title: Qasem Soleimani

text: According to several sources, including Riad Hijab, a former Syrian premier who deserted in August 2012, Soleimani was one of the strongest supporters of the Syrian government of Bashar al-Assad in the Syrian Civil War. Soleimani was involved in planning and carrying out the Siege of Baba Amr during the Siege of Homs since 2011, according to the Syrian Minister of Defense, Ali Abdullah Ayyoub. In the later half of 2012, Soleimani assumed personal control of the Iranian intervention in the Syrian Civil War, when the Iranians became deeply concerned about the Assad government's inability to fight the opposition, and the negative consequences to the Islamic Republic if the Syrian government fell. He reportedly coordinated the war from a base in Damascus at which a Lebanese Hezbollah commander and an Iraqi Shia militia coordinator were mobilized, in addition to Syrian and Iranian officers. Under Soleimani, the command "coordinated attacks, trained militias, and set up an elaborate system to monitor rebel communications". According to a Middle Eastern security official Dexter Filkins talked to, thousands of Quds Force and Iraqi Shia militiamen in Syria were "spread out across the entire country". The retaking of Qusayr in May 2013 from rebel forces and Al-Nusra Front was, according to John Maguire, a former CIA officer in Iraq, "orchestrated" by Soleimani.


title: Qasem Soleimani

text: Brigadier General Hossein Hamadani, the Basij's former deputy commander, helped to run irregular militias that Soleimani hoped would continue the fight if Assad fell. Soleimani helped establish the National Defence Forces (NDF) in 2013 which would formalize the coalition of pro-Assad groups.


title: Qasem Soleimani

text: Soleimani was much credited in Syria for the strategy that assisted President Bashar al-Assad in finally repulsing rebel forces and recapturing key cities and towns. He was involved in the training of government-allied militias and the coordination of decisive military offensives. The sighting of Iranian UAVs in Syria strongly suggested that his command, the Quds Force, was involved in the civil war.


title: Qasem Soleimani

text: In a visit to the Lebanese capital Beirut on 29 January 2015, Soleimani laid wreaths at the graves of the slain Hezbollah members, including Jihad Mughniyah, which strengthened suspicions about a collaboration between Hezbollah and the Quds Force.


title: Qasem Soleimani

text: In 2015, Soleimani began gathering support from various sources to combat the newly resurgent Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and rebel groups which had both successfully taken large swaths of territory from Assad's forces. He was reportedly the main architect of the joint intervention involving Russia as a new partner with Assad and Hezbollah.


title: Qasem Soleimani

text: According to Reuters, at a meeting in Moscow in July, Soleimani unfurled a map of Syria to explain to his Russian hosts how a series of defeats for President Bashar al-Assad could be turned into victory—with Russia's help. Soleimani's visit to Moscow was the first step in planning for the Russian military intervention that has reshaped the Syrian war and forged a new Iran–Russia alliance in support of the Syrian (and Iraqi) governments. Iran's supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, also sent a senior envoy to Moscow to meet President Vladimir Putin. "Putin reportedly told [a senior Iranian envoy] 'Okay we will intervene. Send Qassem Soleimani.'" General Soleimani went to explain the map of the theatre and coordinate the strategic escalation of military forces in Syria.


title: Qasem Soleimani

text: Soleimani had a decisive impact on the theater of operations, which led to a strong advance in southern Aleppo with the government and allied forces re-capturing two military bases and dozens of towns and villages in a matter of weeks. There was also a series of major advances towards Kuweiris air-base to the north-east. By mid-November, the Syrian army and its allies had gained ground in southern areas of Aleppo Governorate, capturing numerous rebel strongholds. Soleimani was reported to have personally led the drive deep into the southern Aleppo countryside where many towns and villages fell into government hands. He reportedly commanded the Syrian Arab Army's 4th Mechanized Division, Hezbollah, Harakat Al-Nujaba (Iraqi), Kata'ib Hezbollah (Iraqi), Liwaa Abu Fadl Al-Abbas (Iraqi), and Firqa Fatayyemoun (Afghan/Iranian volunteers).


title: Qasem Soleimani

text: In early February 2016, backed by Russian and Syrian air force airstrikes, the 4th Mechanized Division—in close coordination with Hezbollah, the National Defense Forces (NDF), Kata'eb Hezbollah, and Harakat Al-Nujaba—launched an offensive in Aleppo Governorate's northern countryside, which eventually broke the three-year siege of Nubl and Al-Zahraa and cut off the rebels' main supply route from Turkey. According to a senior, non-Syrian security source close to Damascus, Iranian fighters played a crucial role in the conflict. "Qassem Soleimani is there in the same area", he said. In December 2016, new photos emerged of Soleimani at the Citadel of Aleppo, though the exact date of the photos is unknown.


title: Qasem Soleimani

text: In late March 2017, Soleimani was seen in the northern Hama Governorate countryside in Syria, reportedly aiding Major General Suheil al-Hassan to repel a major rebel offensive.


title: Qasem Soleimani

text: Soleimani had a significant role in Iran's fight against ISIL in Iraq. He was described as the "linchpin" bringing together Kurdish and Shia forces to fight ISIS, overseeing joint operations conducted by the two groups.


title: Qasem Soleimani

text: In 2014, Soleimani was in the Iraqi city of Amirli, to work with Iraqi forces to push back ISIL militants. The "Los Angeles Times" reported that Amirli was the first town to successfully withstand an ISIL invasion, and was secured thanks to "an unusual partnership of Iraqi and Kurdish soldiers, Iranian-backed Shia militias and U.S. warplanes".


title: Qasem Soleimani

text: A senior Iraqi official told the BBC that when the city of Mosul fell, the rapid reaction of Iran, rather than American bombing, was what prevented a more widespread collapse. Soleimani also seems to have been instrumental in planning the operation to relieve Amirli in Saladin Governorate, where ISIL had laid siege to an important city. In fact, the Quds force operatives under Soleimani's command seem to have been deeply involved not only with the Iraqi army and Shia militias but also with the Kurdish forces in the Battle of Amirli, providing liaisons for intelligence-sharing along with arms, munitions and expertise.


title: Qasem Soleimani

text: In the operation to liberate Jurf Al Sakhar, he was reportedly "present on the battlefield". Some Shia militia commanders described Soleimani as "fearless", one pointing out that the Iranian general never wears a flak jacket even on the front lines.


title: Qasem Soleimani

text: In November 2014, Shia and Kurdish forces under Soleimani's command pushed ISIL out of the Iraqi villages of Jalawla and Saadia in the Diyala Governorate.


title: Qasem Soleimani

text: Soleimani played an integral role in the organization and planning of the crucial operation to retake the city of Tikrit in Iraq from ISIL. The city of Tikrit rests on the left bank of the Tigris river and is the largest and most important city between Baghdad and Mosul, giving it a high strategic value. The city fell to ISIL during 2014 when ISIL made immense gains in northern and central Iraq. After its capture, ISIL's massacre at Camp Speicher led to 1,600 to 1,700 deaths of Iraqi Army cadets and soldiers. After months of careful preparation and intelligence gathering an offensive to encircle and capture Tikrit was launched in early March 2015.


title: Qasem Soleimani

text: In 2016, photos published by a Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) source showed Soleimani attending a meeting of PMF commanders in Iraq to discuss the Battle of Fallujah.


title: Qasem Soleimani

text: CIA chief Mike Pompeo said he sent Soleimani and other Iranian leaders a letter holding them responsible for any attacks on U.S. interests by forces under their control. According to Mohammad Mohammadi Golpayegani, a senior aide for Iran's supreme leader, Soleimani ignored the letter when it was handed over to him during the Abu Kamal offensive against ISIL, saying "I will not take your letter nor read it and I have nothing to say to these people."


title: Qasem Soleimani

text: In 1999, Soleimani, along with other senior IRGC commanders, signed a letter to then-President Mohammad Khatami regarding the student protests in July. They wrote "Dear Mr. Khatami, how long do we have to shed tears, sorrow over the events, practice democracy by chaos and insults, and have revolutionary patience at the expense of sabotaging the system? Dear president, if you don't make a revolutionary decision and act according to your Islamic and national missions, tomorrow will be so late and irrecoverable that cannot be even imagined."


title: Qasem Soleimani

text: Iranian media reported in 2012 that he might be replaced as the commander of Quds Force in order to allow him to run in the 2013 presidential election. He reportedly refused to be nominated for the election. According to BBC News, in 2015 a campaign started among conservative bloggers for Soleimani to stand for 2017 presidential election. In 2016, he was speculated as a possible candidate, however in a statement published on 15 September 2016, he called speculations about his candidacy as "divisive reports by the enemies" and said he will "always remain a simple soldier serving Iran and the Islamic Revolution".


title: Qasem Soleimani

text: In the summer of 2018, Soleimani and Tehran exchanged public remarks with American President Donald Trump related to Red Sea shipping which heightened tensions between the two countries and their allies in the region.


title: Qasem Soleimani

text: In March 2007, Soleimani was included on a list of Iranian individuals targeted with sanctions in United Nations Security Council Resolution 1747. On 18 May 2011, he was sanctioned again by the U.S. along with Syrian president Bashar al-Assad and other senior Syrian officials due to his alleged involvement in providing material support to the Syrian government.


title: Qasem Soleimani

text: On 24 June 2011, the "Official Journal of the European Union" said the three Iranian Revolutionary Guard members now subject to sanctions had been "providing equipment and support to help the Syrian government suppress protests in Syria". The Iranians added to the EU sanctions list were two Revolutionary Guard commanders, Soleimani, Mohammad Ali Jafari, and the Guard's deputy commander for intelligence, Hossein Taeb. Soleimani was also sanctioned by the Swiss government in September 2011 on the same grounds cited by the European Union.


title: Qasem Soleimani

text: In 2007, the U.S. included him in a "Designation of Iranian Entities and Individuals for Proliferation Activities and Support for Terrorism", which forbade U.S. citizens from doing business with him. The list, published in the EU's Official Journal on 24 June 2011, also included a Syrian property firm, an investment fund and two other enterprises accused of funding the Syrian government. The list also included Mohammad Ali Jafari and Hossein Taeb.


title: Qasem Soleimani

text: On 13 November 2018, the U.S. sanctioned an Iraqi military leader named Shibl Muhsin 'Ubayd Al-Zaydi and others who allegedly were acting on Soleimani's behalf in financing military actions in Syria or otherwise providing support for terrorism in the region.


title: Qasem Soleimani

text: Soleimani's father, Hassan, was a farmer who died in 2017. His mother, Fatemeh, died in 2013. He left behind four siblings. His younger brother, Sohrab, who lived and worked with Soleimani in his youth, is now a warden and former director general of the Tehran Prisons Organization. The U.S. imposed sanctions on Sohrab Soleimani in April 2017 "for his role in abuses in Iranian prisons". He left five surviving children: three sons and two daughters. Another child predeceased him. One of his daughters, Zeinab, was asking for revenge after her father's death. He was described as having "a calm presence", and as carrying himself "inconspicuously and rarely rais[ing] his voice", exhibiting "understated charisma". Unlike other IRGC commanders, he usually did not appear in his official military clothing, even on the battlefield. In January 2015, Hadi Al-Ameri, the head of the Badr Organization in Iraq, said of him: "If Qasem Soleimani was not present in Iraq, Haider al-Abadi would not be able to form his cabinet within Iraq".


title: Qasem Soleimani

text: Soleimani was a popular national figure in Iran, considered a hero by the conservatives. According to a poll conducted in collaboration with IranPoll for the University of Maryland School of Public Policy, by October 2019 Soleimani was viewed favorably by 82% of Iranians with 59% of them very favorable toward him. He was often considered the second most powerful person and general in Iran, behind Ayatollah Khamenei. Since the Iran–Iraq War (1980–88), in which Iran was attacked by Saddam Hussein's Iraq and also felt attacked by other countries which sided with Iraq, including the U.S., which supplied weapons and intelligence to Iraq, Soleimani had developed into an architect of Iran's foreign policies in the Middle East and a key figure behind Iran's foreign and defence policies.


title: Qasem Soleimani

text: Soleimani cultivated public relations and a personality cult that formed part of his image. After his death, the Iranian propaganda campaign intensified disinformation efforts in coordinating the international public opinion toward idolization of Soleimani. These efforts included using state-run TV channels and several social media accounts, a large proportion of which had newly been created, and posting images such as heroic, "noble warrior" depictions of Soleimani, appealing to both nationalists and religious conservatives. It is believed by many that these measures have been at least partially successful, arguing that even some American outlets were biased.


title: Qasem Soleimani

text: Soleimani was assassinated on 3 January 2020 around 1:00a.m. local time (22:00 UTC 2January), by U.S. drone strike near Baghdad International Airport. BBC News, NBC News, DW News, "Time", "The Guardian" and other media outlets have said Soleimani was assassinated or described the killing as an assassination. Senior officials of the U.S. Department of State compared it to Operation Vengeance in World War II, when American pilots shot down the plane carrying Japanese Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto – a comparison concurred with by "The New York Times" and other prominent media and pundits.


title: Qasem Soleimani

text: Soleimani was on his way to meet Iraqi Prime Minister Adil Abdul-Mahdi and had just left his plane, which arrived in Iraq from Lebanon or Syria. Adil Abdul Mahdi said Soleimani was bringing Iran's response to a letter that Iraq had sent out on behalf of Saudi Arabia in order to ease tensions between the two countries in the region. The prime minister did not reveal the message's exact content. Also assassinated were four members of the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), including Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the Iraqi military commander who headed the PMF. Soleimani's body was identified using a ring he wore on his finger, with DNA confirmation still pending.


title: Qasem Soleimani

text: Soleimani was posthumously promoted to the rank of Lieutenant General and praised as a martyr by speaker of the Iranian parliament Ali Larijani and Mohsen Rezaei, a former commander of the IRGC. Soleimani was succeeded by Esmail Ghaani as commander of the Quds Force.


title: Qasem Soleimani

text: According to the Iranian Students News Agency quoting the Iraqi Al-Ahd network, there are diverse narratives concerning the drones which assassinated Qasim-Soleimani (and Abu-Mahdi al-Muhandis). A narrative mentions about the American drones which took-off from Kuwait land, and entered Iraq and did the mentioned operation, on the other hand, the headquarters of the Kuwaiti Armed Forces denied the news after a few hours. The second news says that an American UAV rises from the Al-Adeed base in Qatar and do the mentioned assassination-operation. Also, according to Ahmed al-Asadi, a member of the Iraqi Parliament: "The drones which carried out the assassination-operation, were 3 American UAVs that took-off from the military-base of "Ain al-Assad" and flew in the sky of Baghdad for 20 hours on Thursday morning and then came back directly to the "Ain al-Assad" base after carrying out the assassination operation." According to Radio-Farda quoting American-media, the drones which did the assassination were from the type of "MQ-9 Reaper".


title: Qasem Soleimani

text: CNBC reported that the U.S. had been in pursuit of the general for decades. President Trump had expressed a desire to target Soleimani in a 2017 meeting with then National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster. On 13 January 2020, five senior current and former Trump administration officials told NBC News that President Trump had authorized the killing of Soleimani in June 2019 on the condition that he had been involved in the killing of many Americans, a decision backed by U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. In making the 2020 strike, the Pentagon focused on Soleimani's past actions and on deterring future such actions. The strike followed attacks on the American embassy in Baghdad by supporters of an Iran-backed Iraqi Shia militia and the 2019 K-1 Air Base attack. Anonymous officials told "The New York Times" that Trump had initially decided to strike at the Shia militia, but instead chose the most extreme option proposed (killing Soleimani) after seeing television footage of the attack on the embassy. The death of an Iraqi-American contractor in a rocket attack in December 2019 was reportedly also used as justification for the strike, contradicting the Trump Administration's claim that Soleimani was targeted because he was plotting "imminent" attacks on Americans and had to be targeted in order to stop these attacks.


title: Qasem Soleimani

text: The U.S. Defense Department said the strike was carried out "at the direction of the President" and asserted that Soleimani had been planning further attacks on American diplomats and military personnel and had approved the attacks on the American embassy in Baghdad in response to U.S. airstrikes in Iraq and Syria on 29 December 2019, and that the strike was meant to deter future attacks. As part of the administration's changing justification for the strike, a national security adviser asserted that Soleimani had intended further attacks on American diplomats and troops, and Mark Esper asserted the general had been expected to mastermind an attack within days. Trump stated in a Fox News interview that four embassies, including the U.S. embassy in Baghdad, had been targeted; Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said it was not known where or when the attacks would have taken place.


title: Qasem Soleimani

text: The strike was not approved by the U.S. Congress or consented to by the Iraqi government, leading to controversy regarding the legality of killing an Iranian military leader over Iraqi airspace.


title: Qasem Soleimani

text: An arrest warrant was issued by an Iraqi court for President Donald Trump in connection with the killing of Soleimani. The arrest warrant was for a charge of premeditated murder, which carries the death penalty on conviction.


title: Qasem Soleimani

text: On 14 February 2020, in a legally required unclassified memorandum to Congress, the Trump administration said it was authorized under both the Constitution and the 2002 Authorization of Use of Military Force Against Iraq.


title: Qasem Soleimani

text: However, the Chairman of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs Engel said "The 2002 authorization was passed to deal with Saddam Hussein. This law had nothing to do with Iran or Iranian government officials in Iraq. To suggest that 18 years later this authorization could justify killing an Iranian official stretches the law far beyond anything Congress ever intended," adding that he "looked forward" to Pompeo testifying in a 28 February hearing.


title: Qasem Soleimani

text: The United States, as a member of the United Nations, has ratified the Charter of the United Nations and, therefore, is bound by its provisions. Agnès Callamard, United Nations Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, and Director of Columbia University's Global Freedom of Expression project, researched the alleged legal basis for the killing of Suleimani advanced by the United States government and stated that the Suleimani's killing could have been justified under international law only if it had been a response to an "imminent threat." However, she said that the United States had provided no evidence to support that contention. "Absent an actual imminent threat to life, the course of action taken by the U.S. was unlawful," Ms. Callamard wrote in a report that she presented in July 2020 to the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva. The Trump administration's February 2020 memorandum to Congress was "remarkably vague and inconsequential as far as a possible imminent threat is concerned," Ms. Callamard wrote in the report. "Even at the most basic level, the U.S. did not demonstrate that striking Suleimani was 'necessary.'"


title: Qasem Soleimani

text: Callamard also concluded that the killing sets an alarming precedent—it was the first targeted drone killing of a senior foreign government official on the territory of a third country. The world now faced "the very real prospect that states may opt to ‘strategically’ eliminate high-ranking military officials outside the context of a 'known' war, and seek to justify the killing on the grounds of the target's classification as a 'terrorist' who posed a potential future threat," Callamard said in her report. Also, she noted that scores of countries and many non-state actors now have operational drones, and that drones kill many non-combatants for every person targeted.


title: Qasem Soleimani

text: According to Agnès Callamard, the UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial killing, "the killings of Qassem Suleimani and Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis violates international human rights law". She said the U.S. is required to confirm "the individual targeted constituted an imminent threat to others." Callamard also described the killing of other individuals alongside Soleimani as "unlawful" and other scholars argue it violates international law. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, Medea Benjamin (the founder of anti-war advocacy group Code Pink) and Hillary Mann Leverett (a political risk consultant and former director of Iran affairs at the White House's National Security Council) called the assassination of Soleimani "flatly illegal".


title: Qasem Soleimani

text: Analysts Ali Vaez and Iain King and some Twitter users compared the event to the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, and #Ferdinand and #WWIII began trending on Twitter because of what BBC News called "obvious parallels [...] a single strike bringing existing tensions to boiling point". Some protesters raised concerns that Iraq could become a site of open clashes between Iran and the U.S. following the assassination of Soleimani in Baghdad and Iran's retaliatory missile attacks on U.S. bases.


title: Qasem Soleimani

text: Democrats, including top 2020 presidential candidates, condemned the killing of Soleimani, arguing that it escalated the conflict with Iran, and risked retaliation or war.


title: Qasem Soleimani

text: The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) praised the killing of Soleimani as a divine intervention, saying it helped jihadists.


title: Qasem Soleimani

text: UK Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab, however, backed the strike, describing the American action as self-defense.


title: Qasem Soleimani

text: According to a Facebook spokesperson, Instagram and its parent company Facebook are removing posts "that voice support for slain Iranian commander Qassem Soleimani to comply with U.S. sanctions."


title: Qasem Soleimani

text: In June 2020, Iran placed an arrest warrant for President Donald Trump, with an Iranian prosecutor saying Trump and 35 others "faced murder and terrorism charges" over the killing of Soleimani.


title: Qasem Soleimani

text: Iran's Foreign Minister Javad Zarif said in a leaked tape that "Soleimani's death caused more damage to the country than if the U.S. wiped out an entire city. "


title: Qasem Soleimani

text: Some activists living out of reach of the Iranian authorities, such as Saghar Erica Kasraie, Reza Alijani, and Masih Alinejad, condemned Soleimani. Some Iranians mourning for the dead of Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752 less than a week after his death called him a murderer and tore up his pictures during the protests. BBC reported that "the protests were, however, far smaller than the mass demonstrations across Iran in support of Soleimani".


title: Qasem Soleimani

text: Ismail Haniyeh described Soleimani as "the martyr of Jerusalem" in a speech pronounced in Tehran during his funeral.


title: Qasem Soleimani

text: On 4 January, a funeral procession for Soleimani was held in Baghdad with thousands of mourners in attendance, waving Iraqi and militia flags and chanting "death to America, death to Israel". The procession started at the Al-Kadhimiya Mosque in Baghdad. Iraq's prime minister, Adil Abdul-Mahdi, and leaders of Iran-backed militias attended the funeral procession. Soleimani's remains were taken to the holy Shia cities of Karbala and Najaf. On 5 January, the remains of the bodies arrived in Ahvaz, and then Mashhad. Tens of thousands of mourners in black clothes attended the funeral procession with green, white, and red flags. Muqtada al-Sadr paid a visit to Soleimani's house to express his condolence to his family.


title: Qasem Soleimani

text: On 6 January, the body of Soleimani and other casualties arrived at the Iranian capital Tehran. Huge crowds, reportedly hundreds of thousands or millions, packed the streets. Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, who had a close relationship with Soleimani, led the traditional Islamic prayer for the dead, weeping at one point in front of the flag-draped coffins. Ali Khamenei mourned openly near the coffin while the general's successor swore revenge. Esmail Ghaani, who was named commander of the Quds Force hours after Soleimani's killing, said: "God the Almighty has promised to get his revenge, and God is the main avenger." Iranian foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif asked if Trump had ever seen "such a sea of humanity". He was given a multi-city funeral, and his funeral procession was said to be the second largest after that of Ayatollah Khomeini. On 7 January 2020, a stampede took place at the burial procession for Soleimani in Kerman attended by hundreds of thousands of mourners, killing 56 and injuring 212 more.


title: Qasem Soleimani

text: On 7 January 2020, the Supreme National Security Council of Iran announced that it had drafted a 13 revenge scenarios document.


title: Qasem Soleimani

text: The next day, the Iranian military responded to Soleimani's death by launching ballistic missiles at two U.S. bases in Iraq, resulting in no reported casualties but 100 traumatic brain injuries. Iranian officials and some Western media analysts suggested the strike was deliberately designed to avoid causing any casualties to avoid an American response. The Iranian president cautioned the U.S. that Iran will take more retaliatory actions if the U.S. continues to interfere in the region.


title: Qasem Soleimani

text: On 20 July 2020, it was reported by Iranian state television that Mahmoud Mousavi Majd had been executed following his conviction for providing information to the US and Israel about Soleimani and the Quds force.


title: Qasem Soleimani

text: On 3 January 2021, the first anniversary was marked of Qassem Soleimani and Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis in Baghdad. Tens of thousands of Iran-back militias marched on the highway leading to the Baghdad airport while chanting anti-American slogans.


title: Qasem Soleimani

text: There have been held commemoration ceremonies by the name of "Commemoration-Ceremony (Anniversary) of Martyr Qassem-Soleimani" (and Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis) in presence and virtually (via web conferencing) in the cities of the Islamic Republic of Iran and several countries, such as Oman, Iraq, Syria and Portugal.


title: Qasem Soleimani

text: According to Fars News Agency, the anniversary of the commemoration of Qasem Soleimani, Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis and their colleagues was held with the presence of local and foreign officials in University of Tehran, Iran.


title: Qasem Soleimani

text: In 2015, the British magazine "The Week" featured a cartoon of Soleimani in bed with Uncle Sam, which alluded to both sides' fighting ISIL.


title: Qasem Soleimani

text: The 2016 Persian book "Noble Comrades 17: Hajj Qassem", written by Ali Akbari Mozdabadi, contains memoirs of Qassem Soleimani.


title: Qasem Soleimani

text: In 2017, a computer animated film, "Battle of Persian Gulf II", where Soleimani is portrayed as the hero of the film.


title: Qasem Soleimani

text: On 13 January 2020, Syrian Minister of Defense Ali Abdullah Ayyoub presented the medal of ""The Champion of the Syrian Arab Republic"", which President Bashar al-Assad granted posthumously to Qassem Soleimani, to his Iranian counterpart, Amir Hatami.


title: Qasem Soleimani

text: Shortly after his death, various representations of Qasem Soleimani appeared in many wall paintings and propaganda posters in Iran. Since then, his portrait has become more and more an integral part of the iconographic representation of the Islamic Republic.


title: Qasem Soleimani

text: In August 2020, Iran unveiled a new ballistic missile named Martyr Haj Qasem and a new cruise missile named Martyr Abu Mahdi after Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the Iraqi commander killed alongside Soleimani.


title: Qasem Soleimani

text: "Shahid Soleimani Plan" (also "Martyr Soleiman Project") is the name of a complementary project to fight SARS-CoV-2 during the COVID-19 pandemic in Iran, in which more than 17 million households were screened, and this screening has been performed by more than 4.5 million "health ambassadors" in Iran.


title: Thomas Sankara

text: Thomas Isidore Noël Sankara (; 21 December 1949 – 15 October 1987) was a Burkinabé military officer, Marxist–Leninist revolutionary, and Pan-Africanist, who served as President of Burkina Faso from his coup in 1983 to his deposition and murder in 1987. Viewed by supporters as a charismatic and iconic figure of revolution, he is commonly referred to as 'Africa's Che Guevara'.


title: Thomas Sankara

text: After being appointed Prime Minister in 1983, disputes with the sitting government led to Sankara's eventual imprisonment. While he was under house arrest, a group of revolutionaries seized power on his behalf in a popularly-supported coup later that year. Aged 33, Sankara became the President of the Republic of Upper Volta. He immediately launched programmes for social, ecological and economic change and renamed the country from the French colonial name Upper Volta to Burkina Faso ('Land of Incorruptible People'), with its people being called Burkinabé ('upright people'). His foreign policies were centred on anti-imperialism and he rejected aid from organizations such as the International Monetary Fund. Sankara welcomed foreign aid from other sources but tried to reduce reliance on aid by boosting domestic revenues and diversifying the sources of assistance.


title: Thomas Sankara

text: His domestic policies were focused on preventing famine with agrarian self-sufficiency and land reform, prioritizing education with a nationwide literacy campaign and promoting public health by vaccinating more than 2 million children against meningitis, yellow fever and measles, which saved the lives of 18,000 to 50,000 children annually. His government focused on building schools, health centres, water reservoirs, and nearly 100 km of rail, with little or no external assistance. Total cereal production rose by 75% between 1983 and 1986. Other components of his national agenda included planting over 10 million trees to combat the growing desertification of the Sahel, redistributing land from private landowners, suspending rural poll taxes and domestic rents and establishing a road and railway construction programme. On the local level, Sankara called on every village to build a medical dispensary and had pharmacies built in 5,384 out of 7,500 villages. From 1982 to 1984 the infant mortality rate dropped from 208 per 1,000 births to 145. School attendance under Sankara increased from 6% to 22%. Moreover, he outlawed female genital mutilation, forced marriages and polygamy. He appointed women to high governmental positions and encouraged them to work outside the home and stay in school.


title: Thomas Sankara

text: As an admirer of the Cuban Revolution, Sankara set up Cuban-style Committees for the Defence of the Revolution. As such, he prioritised gender equality, slashed the wages of his top officials and set up Popular Revolutionary Tribunals to prosecute public officials charged with political crimes and corruption, considering such elements of the state counter-revolutionaries.


title: Thomas Sankara

text: Sankara’s revolutionary programmes for African self-reliance made him an icon to many of Africa's poor, and Sankara remained popular with a considerable majority of his country's citizens, though some of his policies alienated elements of the former ruling class. These antagonistic groups included the Burkinabé oligarchy, the tribal leaders — who were stripped of their long-held traditional privileges of forced labour and tribute payments — and the governments of France and its ally the Ivory Coast, which had previously dominated the nation through colonial power. On 15 October 1987, Sankara was assassinated by troops led by Blaise Compaoré, who assumed leadership of the state shortly thereafter.


title: Thomas Sankara

text: Thomas Sankara was born Thomas Isidore Noël Sankara on 21 December 1949 in Yako, French Upper Volta, as the third of ten children to Joseph and Marguerite Sankara. His father, Joseph Sankara, a gendarme, was of mixed Mossi–Fulani (Silmi–Moaga) heritage while his mother, Marguerite Kinda, was of direct Mossi descent. He spent his early years in Gaoua, a town in the humid southwest to which his father was transferred as an auxiliary gendarme. As the son of one of the few African functionaries then employed by the colonial state, he enjoyed a relatively privileged position. The family lived in a brick house with the families of other gendarmes at the top of a hill overlooking the rest of Gaoua.


title: Thomas Sankara

text: Sankara attended primary school at Bobo-Dioulasso. He applied himself seriously to his schoolwork and excelled in mathematics and French. He went to church often, and impressed with his energy and eagerness to learn, some of the priests encouraged Thomas to go on to seminary school once he finished primary school. Despite initially agreeing, he took the exam required for entry to the sixth grade in the secular educational system and passed. Thomas's decision to continue his education at the nearest lycée Ouezzin Coulibaly (named after a pre-independence nationalist) proved to be a turning point. This step got him out of his father's household since the lycée was in Bobo-Dioulasso, the country's commercial centre. At the lycée, Sankara made close friends, including Fidèle Too, whom he later named a minister in his government; and Soumane Touré, who was in a more advanced class.


title: Thomas Sankara

text: His Roman Catholic parents wanted him to become a priest, but he chose to enter the military. The military was popular at the time, having just ousted a despised president. It was also seen by young intellectuals as a national institution that might potentially help to discipline the inefficient and corrupt bureaucracy, counterbalance the inordinate influence of traditional chiefs and generally help modernize the country. Besides, acceptance into the military academy would come with a scholarship; Sankara could not easily afford the costs of further education otherwise. He took the entrance exam and passed.


title: Thomas Sankara

text: He entered the military academy of Kadiogo in Ouagadougou with the academy's first intake of 1966 at the age of 17. While there he witnessed the first military coup d'état in Upper Volta led by Lieutenant-Colonel Sangoulé Lamizana (3 January 1966). The trainee officers were taught by civilian professors in the social sciences. Adama Touré, who taught history and geography and was known for having progressive ideas, even though he did not publicly share them, was the academic director at the time. He invited a few of his brightest and more political students, among them Sankara, to join informal discussions about imperialism, neocolonialism, socialism and communism, the Soviet and Chinese revolutions, the liberation movements in Africa and similar topics outside of the classroom. This was the first time Sankara was systematically exposed to a revolutionary perspective on Upper Volta and the world. Aside from his academic and extracurricular political activities, Sankara also pursued his passion for music and played the guitar.


title: Thomas Sankara

text: In 1970, 20 year old Sankara went on for further military studies at the military academy of Antsirabe (Madagascar), from which he graduated as a junior officer in 1973. At the Antsirabe academy, the range of instruction went beyond standard military subjects, which allowed Sankara to study agriculture, including how to raise crop yields and better the lives of farmers—themes he later took up in his own administration and country. During that period, he read profusely on history and military strategy, thus acquiring the concepts and analytical tools that he would later use in his reinterpretation of Burkinabe political history.


title: Thomas Sankara

text: After basic military training in secondary school in 1966, Sankara began his military career at the age of 19 and a year later was sent to Madagascar for officer training at Antsirabe where he witnessed popular uprisings in 1971 and 1972 against the government of Philibert Tsiranana and first read the works of Karl Marx and Vladimir Lenin, profoundly influencing his political views for the rest of his life.


title: Thomas Sankara

text: Returning to Upper Volta in 1972, he fought in a border war between Upper Volta and Mali by 1974. He earned fame for his performance in the conflict, but years later would renounce the fighting as 'useless and unjust', a reflection of his growing political consciousness. He also became a popular figure in the capital of Ouagadougou. Sankara was a decent guitarist. He played in a band named Tout-à-Coup Jazz and rode a bicycle.


title: Thomas Sankara

text: In 1976 he became commander of the Commando Training Centre in Pô. In the same year he met Blaise Compaoré in Morocco. During the presidency of Colonel Saye Zerbo, a group of young officers formed a secret organization called the 'Communist Officers' Group' (, or ROC), the best-known members being Henri Zongo, Jean-Baptiste Boukary Lingani, Blaise Compaoré and Sankara.


title: Thomas Sankara

text: Sankara was appointed Minister of Information in Saye Zerbo's military government in September 1981. Sankara differentiated himself from other government officials in many ways such as biking to work everyday, instead of driving in a car. While his predecessors would censor journalists and newspapers, Sankara encouraged investigative journalism and allowed the media to print whatever it found. This led to publications of government scandals by both privately-owned and state-owned newspapers. He resigned on 12 April 1982 in opposition to what he saw as the regime's anti-labour drift, declaring 'Misfortune to those who gag the people!' ().


title: Thomas Sankara

text: After another coup (7 November 1982) brought to power Major-Doctor Jean-Baptiste Ouédraogo, Sankara became Prime Minister in January 1983 but he was dismissed (17 May). In between those four months, Sankara pushed Ouédraogo's regime for more progressive reforms. Sankara was then arrested after the French President's African affairs adviser, Guy Penne, met with Col. Yorian Somé. Henri Zongo and Jean-Baptiste Boukary Lingani were also placed under arrest. The decision to arrest Sankara proved to be very unpopular with the younger officers in the military regime and his imprisonment created enough momentum for his friend Blaise Compaoré to lead another coup.


title: Thomas Sankara

text: A coup d'état organized by Blaise Compaoré made Sankara President on 4 August 1983 at the age of 33. The coup d'état was supported by Libya, which was at the time on the verge of war with France in Chad (see history of Chad).


title: Thomas Sankara

text: Sankara saw himself as a revolutionary and was inspired by the examples of Cuba's Fidel Castro and Che Guevara and Ghana's military leader Jerry Rawlings. As President, he promoted the 'Democratic and Popular Revolution' (, or RDP). The ideology of the Revolution was defined by Sankara as anti-imperialist in a speech on 2 October 1983, the (DOP), written by his close associate Valère Somé. His policy was oriented toward fighting corruption and promoting reforestation.


title: Thomas Sankara

text: On 4 August 1984, the first anniversary of his accession, he renamed the country Burkina Faso, meaning 'the land of upright people' in Mooré and Dyula, the two major languages of the country. He also gave it a new flag and wrote a new national anthem ("Ditanyè").


title: Thomas Sankara

text: Sankara's first priorities after taking office were feeding, housing and giving medical care to his people who desperately needed it. Sankara launched a mass vaccination programme in an attempt to eradicate polio, meningitis and measles. From 1983 to 1985, 2 million Burkinabé were vaccinated.


title: Thomas Sankara

text: Prior to Sankara's presidency infant mortality in Burkina Faso was about 20.8%; during his presidency it fell to 14.5%. Sankara's administration was also the first African government to publicly recognize the AIDS epidemic as a major threat to Africa.


title: Thomas Sankara

text: Large-scale housing and infrastructure projects were also undertaken. Brick factories were created to help build houses in effort to end urban slums. In an attempt to fight deforestation, The People's Harvest of Forest Nurseries was created to supply 7,000 village nurseries, as well as organizing the planting of several million trees. All regions of the country were soon connected by a vast road- and rail-building programme. Over of rail was laid by Burkinabé people to facilitate manganese extraction in 'The Battle of the Rails' without any foreign aid or outside money. These programmes were an attempt to prove that African countries could be prosperous without foreign help or aid.


title: Thomas Sankara

text: Sankara also launched education programmes to help combat the country's 90% illiteracy rate. These programmes had some success in the first few years. However, wide-scale teachers' strikes, coupled with Sankara's unwillingness to negotiate, led to the creation of 'Revolutionary Teachers'. In an attempt to replace the nearly 2,500 teachers fired over a strike in 1987, anyone with a college degree was invited to teach through the revolutionary teachers' programme. Volunteers merely received a 10-day training course before beginning to teach.


title: Thomas Sankara

text: Shortly after attaining power, Sankara constructed a system of courts known as the Popular Revolutionary Tribunal. The courts were created originally to try former government officials in a straightforward way so the average Burkinabé could participate in or oversee trials of enemies of the revolution. They placed defendants on trial for corruption, tax evasion or counter-revolutionary activity. Sentences for former government officials were light and often suspended. The tribunals have been alleged to have been only show trials, held very openly with oversight from the public.


title: Thomas Sankara

text: According to the US State Department, procedures in these trials, especially legal protections for the accused, did not conform to international standards. Defendants had to prove themselves innocent of the crimes they were charged with committing and were not allowed to be represented by counsel. The courts were originally met with adoration from the Burkinabé people but over time became corrupt and oppressive. So called 'lazy workers' were tried and sentenced to work for free or expelled from their jobs and discriminated against. Some even created their own courts to settle scores and humiliate their enemies.


title: Thomas Sankara

text: The Committees for the Defence of the Revolution () were formed as mass armed organizations. The CDRs were created as a counterweight to the power of the army as well as to promote political and social revolution. The idea for the Revolutionary Defence Committees was taken from Fidel Castro, whose Committees for the Defence of the Revolution were created as a form of 'revolutionary vigilance'.


title: Thomas Sankara

text: Sankara's CDRs overstepped their power, and were accused by some of thuggery and gang-like behaviour. CDR groups would meddle in the everyday life of the Burkinabé. Individuals would use their power to settle scores or punish enemies. Sankara himself noted the failure publicly. The failure of the CDRs, coupled with the failure of the Revolutionary Teachers programme, mounting labour and middle class disdain, as well as Sankara's steadfastness, led to the regime partially weakening within Burkina Faso.


title: Thomas Sankara

text: A point of contention regarding Sankara's rule is the way he handled the Mossi ethnic group. The Mossi are the most populous ethnic group in Burkina Faso, and they adhere to strict traditional hierarchical social systems. At the top of the hierarchy is the Morho Naba, the chief or king of the Mossi people. Sankara viewed this arrangement as an obstacle to national unity, and proceeded to demote the Mossi elite. The Morho Naba was not allowed to hold courts, and local village chiefs were stripped of their executive powers and given to the CDR.


title: Thomas Sankara

text: Improving women's status in Burkinabé society was one of Sankara's explicit goals, and his government included a large number of women, an unprecedented policy priority in West Africa. His government banned female genital mutilation, forced marriages and polygamy, while appointing women to high governmental positions and encouraging them to work outside the home and stay in school even if pregnant. Sankara also promoted contraception and encouraged husbands to go to market and prepare meals to experience for themselves the conditions faced by women. Sankara recognized the challenges faced by African women when he gave his famous address to mark International Women's Day on 8 March 1987 in Ouagadougou. Sankara spoke to thousands of women in a highly political speech in which he stated that the Burkinabé Revolution was 'establishing new social relations' which would be 'upsetting the relations of authority between men and women and forcing each to rethink the nature of both. This task is formidable but necessary'. Furthermore, Sankara was the first African leader to appoint women to major cabinet positions and to recruit them actively for the military.


title: Thomas Sankara

text: Following the 1974 clashes between Burkina Faso and Mali over the disputed territory of the Agacher Strip, the Organization of African Unity created a mediation commission to resolve the disagreement and provide for an independent, neutral demarcation of the border. Both governments declared that they would not use armed force to end the dispute. Nevertheless, by 1983 the two countries were in disagreement about the work of the commission. Sankara also personally disliked Malian President Moussa Traoré, who had taken power by deposing Modibo Keïta's left-leaning regime. On 17 September Sankara visited Mali and met with Traoré. With Algerian mediation, the two agreed to have the border dispute settled by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and subsequently petitioned the body to resolve the issue.


title: Thomas Sankara

text: In July 1985 Burkina Faso declared the Malian secretary general of the Economic Community of West Africa, Drissa Keita, a "persona non grata" after he criticized Sankara's regime. In September Sankara delivered a speech in which he called for a revolution in Mali. Malian leaders were particularly sensitive to the inflammatory rhetoric, as their country was experiencing social unrest. Around the same time Sankara and other key figures in the CNR became convinced that Traoré was harbouring opposition to the Burkinabé regime in Bamako and plotting to provoke a border war which would be used to support a counterrevolution.


title: Thomas Sankara

text: Tensions at the border first began to rise on 24 November when one Burkinabé national killed another near the border in Soum Province. Malian police crossed the boundary to arrest the murderer and also detained several members of a local Committee for the Defence of the Revolution who were preparing a tribunal. Three days later Malian police entered Kounia to 'restore order'. Burkina Faso made diplomatic representations on the incidents to Mali, but was given no formal response. At the beginning of December Burkina Faso informed Mali and other surrounding countries that it was conducting its decennial national census from 10 to 20 December. On 14 December military personnel entered the Agacher to assist with the census. Mali accused the military authorities of pressuring Malian citizens in border villages to register with the census, a charge which Burkina Faso disputed. In an attempt to reduce tensions, ANAD (a West African treaty organization) dispatched a delegation to Bamako and Ouagadougou to mediate. President of Algeria Chadli Bendjedid also contacted Sankara and Traoré to encourage a peaceful resolution. At the request of ANAD members, Burkina Faso announced the withdrawal of all military personnel from the disputed region.


title: Thomas Sankara

text: Despite the declared withdrawal, a 'war of the communiques' ensued as Burkinabé and Malian authorities exchanged hostile messages with one another. Feeling threatened by Sankara, Traoré began preparing Mali for hostilities with Burkina Faso. Three "groupements" were formed and planned to invade Burkina Faso and converge on the city of Bobo-Dioulasso. Once there, they would rally Burkinabé opposition forces to take Ouagadougou and overthrow Sankara. Former Sankara aide Paul Michaud wrote that the Burkinabé president had actually intended to provoke Mali into conflict with the aim of mobilizing popular support for his regime. According to him "an official—and reliable—Malian source" had reported that mobilization documents dating to 19 December were found on the bodies of fallen Burkinabé soldiers during the ensuing war.


title: Thomas Sankara

text: Sankara's efforts to provide evidence of his bona fides were systematically undermined. 'It is hard to believe that the Malian authorities are unaware that the rumors circulating are false,' says U.S. Ambassador Leonardo Neher. A Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) cable states, 'The war was born of Bamako's hope that the conflict would trigger a coup in Burkina Faso.'


title: Thomas Sankara

text: At dawn on 25 December 1985, about 150 Malian Army tanks crossed the frontier and attacked several locations. Malian troops also attempted to envelope Bobo-Dioulasso in a pincer attack. The Burkina Faso Army struggled to repel the offensive in the face of superior Malian firepower and were overwhelmed on the northern front; Malian forces quickly secured the towns of Dionouga, Selba, Kouna, and Douna in the Agacher. The Burkinabé government in Ougadougou received word of hostilities at about 13:00 and immediately issued mobilization orders. Various security measures were also imposed across the country, including nighttime blackouts. Burkinabé forces regrouped in the Dionouga area to counter-attack. Captain Compaoré took command of this western front. Under his leadership soldiers split into small groups and employed guerrilla tactics against Malian tanks.


title: Thomas Sankara

text: Immediately after hostilities began other African leaders attempted to institute a truce. On the morning of 30 December Burkina Faso and Mali agreed to an ANAD-brokered ceasefire. By then Mali had occupied most of the Agacher Strip. Over 100 Burkinabé and approximately 40 Malian soldiers and civilians were killed during the war. The Burkinabé towns of Ouahigouya, Djibo, and Nassambou were left badly damaged by the fighting. At an ANAD summit in Yamoussoukro on 17 January Traoré and Sankara met and formalized an agreement to end hostilities. The ICJ later split the Agacher; Mali received the more-densely populated western portion and Burkina Faso the eastern section centred on the Béli River. Both countries indicated their satisfaction with the judgement.


title: Thomas Sankara

text: Burkina Faso declared that the war was part of an 'international plot' to bring down Sankara's government. It also rejected speculation that it was fought over rumoured mineral wealth in the Agacher. The country's relatively poor performance in the conflict damaged the domestic credibility of the CNR. Some Burkinabé soldiers were angered by Sankara's failure to prosecute the war more aggressively and rally a counteroffensive against Mali. It also demonstrated the country's weak international position and forced the CNR to craft a more moderate image of its policies and goals abroad. The Burkinabé government made little reference to supporting revolution in other countries in the conflict's aftermath, while its relations with France modestly improved. At a rally held after the war, Sankara conceded that his country's military was not adequately armed and announced the commutation of sentences for numerous political prisoners.


title: Thomas Sankara

text: Thomas Sankara defines his program as anti-imperialist. In this respect, France became the main target of revolutionary rhetoric. These attacks culminated in François Mitterrand's visit to Burkina Faso in November 1986, during which Thomas Sankara violently criticized French policy for having received Pieter Botha, the Prime Minister of South Africa, and Jonas Savimbi, the leader of UNITA, in France, both 'covered in blood from head to toe'. French economic aid was reduced by 80% between 1983 and 1985.


title: Thomas Sankara

text: Guy Penne, President François Mitterrand's advisor on African affairs, organized a media campaign in France to denigrate Thomas Sankara in collaboration with the DGSE, which provided the press with a series of documents on supposed atrocities intended to fuel articles against him.


title: Thomas Sankara

text: A program of cooperation with Cuba was set up. After meeting with Fidel Castro, Thomas Sankara sent young Burkinabés to Cuba in September 1986 to receive professional training and to participate in the country's development upon their return. The latter must be volunteers and are recruited on the basis of a competition with priority given to orphans and children from rural and disadvantaged areas. Some 600 teenagers have flown to Cuba to complete their schooling and receive professional training to become doctors, engineers, agronomists or gynecologists.


title: Thomas Sankara

text: Denouncing the support of the United States to Israel and South Africa, he called on African countries to boycott the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles. At the United Nations General Assembly, he also denounced the invasion of Grenada by the United States, which responded by implementing trade sanctions against Burkina Faso. Also at the UN, he called for an end to the veto power granted to the great powers. In the name of the 'right of peoples to sovereignty', he supported the national demands of the Western Sahara, Palestine, the Nicaraguan Sandinistas and the South African ANC. While he had good relations with Ghanaian leader Jerry Rawlings and Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, he was relatively isolated in West Africa. Leaders close to France, such as Houphouët-Boigny in Côte d'Ivoire and Hassan II in Morocco, were particularly hostile to him.


title: Thomas Sankara

text: In the 1980s, when ecological awareness was still very low, Thomas Sankara was one of the few African leaders to consider environmental protection a priority. He engaged in three major battles: against bush fires 'which will be considered as crimes and will be punished as such'; against cattle roaming 'which infringes on the rights of peoples because unattended animals destroy nature'; and against the anarchic cutting of firewood 'whose profession will have to be organized and regulated'. As part of a development program involving a large part of the population, ten million trees were planted in Burkina Faso in fifteen months during the 'revolution'. To face the advancing desert and recurrent droughts, Thomas Sankara also proposed the planting of wooded strips of about fifty kilometers, crossing the country from east to west. He then thought of extending this vegetation belt to other countries. Cereal production, close to 1.1 billion tons before 1983, will rise to 1.6 billion tons in 1987. Jean Ziegler, former UN special rapporteur for the right to food, emphasized that the country 'had become food self-sufficient'.


title: Thomas Sankara

text: The British development organization Oxfam recorded the arrest of trade union leaders in 1987. In 1984, seven individuals associated with the previous régime were accused of treason and executed after a summary trial. A teachers' strike the same year resulted in the dismissal of 2,500 teachers; thereafter, non-governmental organizations and unions were harassed or placed under the authority of the Committees for the Defence of the Revolution, branches of which were established in each workplace and which functioned as 'organs of political and social control'.


title: Thomas Sankara

text: Popular Revolutionary Tribunals, set up by the government throughout the country, placed defendants on trial for corruption, tax evasion or 'counter-revolutionary' activity. Procedures in these trials, especially legal protections for the accused, did not conform to international standards. According to Christian Morrisson and Jean-Paul Azam of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the 'climate of urgency and drastic action in which many punishments were carried out immediately against those who had the misfortune to be found guilty of unrevolutionary behaviour, bore some resemblance to what occurred in the worst days of the French Revolution, during the Reign of Terror. Although few people were killed, violence was widespread'.


title: Thomas Sankara

text: Accompanying his personal charisma, Sankara had an array of original initiatives that contributed to his popularity and brought some international media attention to his government:


title: Thomas Sankara

text: Sankara is often referred to as "Africa's Che Guevara". Sankara gave a speech marking and honouring the 20th anniversary of Che Guevara's 9 October 1967 execution, one week before his own assassination on 15 October 1987.


title: Thomas Sankara

text: On 15 October 1987, Sankara was killed by an armed group with twelve other officials in a coup d'état organized by his former colleague Blaise Compaoré. When accounting for his overthrow, Compaoré stated that Sankara jeopardized foreign relations with former colonial power France and neighbouring Ivory Coast, and accused his former comrade of plotting to assassinate opponents.


title: Thomas Sankara

text: Prince Johnson, a former Liberian warlord allied to Charles Taylor and killer of the Liberian other president Samuel Doe whose last hours of life were filmed, told Liberia's Truth and Reconciliation Commission that it was engineered by Charles Taylor. After the coup and although Sankara was known to be dead, some CDRs mounted an armed resistance to the army for several days.


title: Thomas Sankara

text: According to Halouna Traoré, the sole survivor of Sankara's assassination, Sankara was attending a meeting with the Conseil de l'Entente. His assassins singled out Sankara and executed him. The assassins then shot at those attending the meeting, killing 12 other people. Sankara's body was riddled with bullets to the back and he was quickly buried in an unmarked grave while his widow Mariam and two children fled the nation. Compaoré immediately reversed the nationalizations, overturned nearly all of Sankara's policies, rejoined the International Monetary Fund and World Bank to bring in 'desperately needed' funds to restore the 'shattered' economy and ultimately spurned most of Sankara's legacy. Compaoré's dictatorship remained in power for 27 years until it was overthrown by popular protests in 2014.


title: Thomas Sankara

text: In 2017, the Burkina Faso government officially asked the French government to release military documents on the killing of Sankara after his widow accused France of masterminding his assassination.


title: Thomas Sankara

text: In April 2021, 34 years after Sankara's assassination, former president Compaoré and 13 others were indicted for complicity in the murder of Sankara as well as other crimes in the coup. This development came as part of President Roch Kaboré's framework of 'national reconciliation'.


title: Thomas Sankara

text: In October 2021, the trial against Compaoré and 13 others began in Ouagadougou, with Compaoré being tried "in absentia". Ex-presidential security chief Hyacinthe Kafondo, was also tried in absentia. A week before the trial, Compaoré's lawyers stated that he wouldn't be attending the trial which they characterized as having defects, and also emphasized his privilege for immunity, being the former head of state. After requests made by the defence attorneys for more time to prepare their defence, the hearing was postponed until March 1st.


title: Thomas Sankara

text: On 6 April 2022, Compaoré and two others were found guilty and sentenced to life in prison in absentia. Eight others were sentenced to between 3 and 20 years in prison. Three were found innocent.


title: Thomas Sankara

text: The exhumation of what are believed to be the remains of Sankara started on African Liberation Day, 25 May 2015. Permission for an exhumation was denied during the rule of his successor, Blaise Compaoré. The exhumation would allow the family to formally identify the remains, a long-standing demand of his family and supporters.


title: Thomas Sankara

text: In October 2015, one of the lawyers for Sankara's widow Mariam reported that the autopsy revealed that Sankara's body was 'riddled' with 'more than a dozen' bullets.


title: Thomas Sankara

text: Twenty years after his assassination, Sankara was commemorated on 15 October 2007 in ceremonies that took place in Burkina Faso, Mali, Senegal, Niger, Tanzania, Burundi, France, Canada and the United States.


title: Thomas Sankara

text: A statue of Sankara was unveiled in 2019 at the location in Ouagadougou where he was assassinated; however due to complaints that it did not match his facial features, a new statue was unveiled a year later.


title: Dead by Daylight

text: Dead by Daylight is an asymmetric multiplayer survival horror online game developed by Canadian studio Behaviour Interactive. It is a one-versus-four game in which one player takes on the role of a savage Killer and the other four play as Survivors; the Killer must catch each Survivor and sacrifice them to a malevolent force known as the Entity by impaling them on hooks, while the Survivors must avoid being caught and fix five generators to power up the exit gates. The game was released for Windows in 2016; PlayStation 4 and Xbox One in 2017; Switch in 2019; and Android, iOS, PlayStation 5, Stadia, and Xbox Series X/S in 2020.


title: Dead by Daylight

text: Swedish studio Starbreeze Studios published the game from 2016 to 2018, and it has since been published by Behaviour Interactive. Italian company 505 Games publishes the Nintendo Switch version, while Austrian company Deep Silver publishes the physical copies of the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S versions.


title: Dead by Daylight

text: Alongside original characters, the game includes characters and settings from various franchises such as "A Nightmare on Elm Street", "Attack on Titan", Crypt TV, "Evil Dead", "Ghostface," "Halloween", "Hellraiser", "Left 4 Dead", "Resident Evil", "Ringu", "Saw", "Silent Hill", "Stranger Things", and "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre". The game received mixed reviews upon release, though it was a commercial success and has attracted more than 50 million players.


title: Dead by Daylight

text: "Dead by Daylight" is an asymmetrical horror game where one player is the Killer and the other four are Survivors. The Survivors' objective is to escape the map by repairing five of seven generators scattered throughout it to power the two exit gates. The Killer must impale all Survivors on hooks before they escape, which will cause them to be sacrificed to a malevolent force known as the Entity. If only one Survivor remains, an escape hatch opens. If the Killer closes the hatch or an exit gate is opened, the "Endgame Collapse" begins and the Survivors must escape within two minutes.


title: Dead by Daylight

text: When hunting Survivors, the Killer must capture them by either striking them with their weapon (one strike injures Survivors and two strikes puts them into a dying state) or by grabbing them in one move by catching them unexpectedly. Although Survivors can attempt to escape the hook the first time they are impaled, success is unlikely. They can also be saved by other Survivors. If they are hooked a second time, they enter a "struggle phase", where they must resist the Entity as it attempts to take them out of the game by performing skill checks until they are either killed or rescued. If they are hooked a third time, they will be sacrificed to the Entity.


title: Dead by Daylight

text: The Survivors' movement options consist of sprinting, walking, crouch-walking, or crawling. They must elude the Killer by losing their line of sight in a chase or by successfully hiding from them. Most Killers can only move at a pace that is moderately faster than that of a sprinting Survivor. However, the Killer is slower in other movements, such as vaulting obstacles. With some exceptions, Killers cannot leap over obstacles that Survivors can throw down into their path and must instead go around them or destroy them. The Killer also has an aura-reading ability, constantly revealing the location of generators, hooks, and sometimes Survivors. Every Killer has their own unique power. For instance, the Wraith can turn invisible and move faster (though is unable to strike Survivors while hidden) and the Hillbilly wields a chainsaw which allows him to dash quickly along the map and instantly knock down any Survivors in his path. These powers can be altered using add-ons obtained through gameplay.


title: Dead by Daylight

text: Survivors can search chests to find useful items, such as maps, keys, toolboxes, med-kits, and flashlights. Most Killers have an innate "terror radius" that surrounds them. Survivors inside the radius will hear a heartbeat, which increases in intensity with proximity to the Killer. They can also see a red light (called the "red stain") emanating from the Killer's head onto the ground, which reveals the direction they are facing and can help the Survivors determine when the Killer is about to come around a corner. Some Killers have the ability to suppress their terror radius and red stain under certain conditions, enabling them to surprise unaware Survivors.


title: Dead by Daylight

text: Survivor interactions with many objects in the game can cause random skill checks to trigger. The player can either perform a good skill check which has no consequence, a great skill check which speeds up the progression of the action the player is taking, or a bad skill check which usually notifies the Killer of the Survivor's location and may also cause a loss of progress. Great skill checks require more precision, and may not always be possible depending on the type of interaction or the perks being used by either the Survivor or the Killer. Killers have the ability to damage generators, which will slowly regress their repair progress over time until a Survivor resumes repairing it.


title: Dead by Daylight

text: If the Killer catches a Survivor, the Killer can pick them up and carry them to one of many sacrificial hooks scattered throughout the map. While being carried, the Survivor can attempt to wiggle out of the Killer's grasp before they reach the hook and then run away. If the Killer succeeds in impaling a Survivor on a hook, a teammate can rescue the impaled Survivor or, more rarely, the impaled Survivor (with a 4% chance) can rescue themselves from the hook. Self-rescue is only possible the first time a Survivor is hooked.


title: Dead by Daylight

text: Once five generators are repaired, a Survivor must find a switch next to one of two exit gates and hold it for twenty seconds in order to open the door. The game only ends when all Survivors have either escaped or have been killed; thus, while some Survivors may escape and finish early, those still inside must keep playing. Players who have escaped or died have the ability to observe the remaining players through the game's conclusion or return to the menu and join a new game.


title: Dead by Daylight

text: If only one Survivor remains, repairing generators is usually not practical. Regardless of whether the other three Survivors escaped or were killed, an open escape hatch will appear in a random location. If the Survivor finds this hatch first, they can escape through it, but if the Killer finds it first, then they can close it. If the Killer closes the hatch, the two exit gates become powered as though the generator objective was completed, allowing the remaining Survivor one final way to escape the trial. If one of the Survivors possesses a special kind of key, either obtained from a chest in the trial or brought into the trial, they can open the hatch and escape. Otherwise, the hatch will remain closed, opening automatically when only one Survivor remains in the trial.


title: Dead by Daylight

text: Survivors and Killers each have the option to use up to four perks in their load-out, which gives their characters special abilities. Perks differ between Survivors and Killers; a Survivor perk may not be used by Killers and vice versa. Survivor perks include a burst of speed when running from the Killer (sprint-burst), the ability to self-heal without a first aid kit (self-care), sabotaging meat hooks without a toolbox (saboteur), and many more. Killer perks include seeing Survivors' auras, hindering their struggle time while being taken to a hook (iron-grasp), locking down generators to prevent them from being worked on (corrupt-intervention), and many more.


title: Dead by Daylight

text: There are a number of "general perks" that start unlocked for any character to learn. Additionally, each specific character starts off with a set of three perks that are unique to them. Perks, add-ons, and items can be unlocked through the Bloodweb, a skill tree where each character can spend in-game currency.


title: Dead by Daylight

text: Advancing to level 50 in a character's Bloodweb allows the player to "prestige" that particular character. Doing so resets the character back to level 0, keeps all previously earned perks, add-ons, and items, and unlocks tiers 1-3 of the character's unique perks to every single other character owned of the same role.


title: Dead by Daylight

text: Players may assume the role of one of the 34 Survivors: some of these characters have been created specifically for the game, some are licensed from other horror franchises.


title: Dead by Daylight

text: Additionally, eight legendary skins have been added which turn their respective Survivor into alternate Survivor characters.


title: Dead by Daylight

text: While these are not legendary skins, these outfits give original Survivors appearances reminiscent of licensed characters from other series.