Iranian terror mastermind Maj. Gen. Qasem Soleimani’s niece — who showcased her lavish Los Angeles lifestyle on social media while bashing the U.S. as the “Great Satan” — was arrested by federal authorities over the weekend and will be removed from the U.S. with no chance of ever returning.
Arrested along with Soleimani niece, Hamideh Soleimani Afshar, 47, and subjected to the removal order was her 25-year-old daughter, Sarinasadat Hosseiny.
Announcement of the federal action was made Saturday by the U.S. State Department and Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which dispatched Immigration and Custom Enforcement (ICE) agents to make the arrests in and around Los Angeles.
According to the statement from the State Department:
While living in the United States, [Ashtar] promoted Iranian regime propaganda, celebrated attacks against American soldiers and military facilities in the Middle East, praised the new Iranian Supreme Leader, denounced America as the “Great Satan,” and voiced her unflinching support for the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, a designated terror organization. Afshar Soleimani pushed this propaganda for Iran’s terrorist regime while enjoying a lavish lifestyle in Los Angeles, as attested to by her frequent posting on her recently deleted Instagram account.
“This week, I terminated both Afshar and her daughter’s legal status and they are now in ICE custody, pending removal from the United States,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio also announced on X.
“The Trump Administration will not allow our country to become a home for foreign nationals who support anti-American terrorist regimes,” Rubio added.
Ashtar’s husband was also barred from entering the U.S., according to authorities.
The mother and daughter’s lifestyle appears striking in light of the Iranian theocratic regime’s strict guidelines for women, requiring them to be modest and their bodies covered in public.
The California Post obtained Instagram images of the mother and her daughter before their accounts were deleted.
Ashtar is shown dressed in a stylish bandana and leopard-patterned top as well as an attractive sheepskin coat while shooting a handgun and an AR-15 rifle at a Los Angeles-area firearm range. Another shows her sitting in a vehicle and revealing her long legs with heels and a hiked-up miniskirt.
Daughter Hossenly’s Instagram account also appears completely at odds with the strict Shia requirements of the regime her mother espoused.
The attractive 25-year-old appears as the quintessential, upscale Los Angeles catch, sitting in a black spaghetti-strap top with a well-groomed Pomeranian dog on her lap.
She is also captured in designer couture in various locations, including in one photo the Post called a “bikini-clad babe showing off stomach tattoos and lounging on a jetski in barely-there swimsuit.”
In other shots, both pose in chic garb with helicopters, as if they’re about to avoid the notorious Los Angeles traffic with a personal chopper.
Afshar, 47, entered the U.S. in 2015 on a tourist visa, was granted asylum in 2019 by a judge, and then secured a green card in 2021 from the Biden administration, according to Homeland Security.
However, despite having the earlier “asylum” designation Afshar made at least four trips back to Iran, according to the department, which stated “her trips to Iran illustrate her asylum claims were fraudulent.”
Hosseiny, 25, entered the in 2015 on a student visa, was granted asylum in 2019 by a judge, and received a green card in 2023, the department said.
“It is a privilege to be granted a green card to live in the United States of America,” DHS spokesman told the Post. “If we have reason to believe a green card holder poses a threat to the US, the green card will be revoked.”
Afshar was spotted by the Post Saturday outside her two bedroom in the Los Angeles suburb of Tujunga, “hastily stuffing designer handbags from Louis Vuitton and Hermes into her Model 3 Tesla sedan hours after her arrest was publicly announced,” the tabloid reported.
OCE reportedly arrested Afshar’s daughter, who goes by the name “Sarina,” while driving with her boyfriend near her home in Hollywood.
President Donald Trump near the end of his first term ordered the fatal drone strike on Afshar’s uncle Major General Soleimani near the Bagdad airport on January 3, 2020.
The president claimed Soleimani — whom he often calls the “father of the roadside bomb” that killed or maimed soldiers in the Iraq conflict — was planning attacks on American diplomats and soldiers in Iraq.
The cancellation of Afshar and her daughter’s legal status is the second such removal this week by the Trump administration.
A physician and faculty member at Emory University in Atlanta, the daughter of a top Iranian official killed last month in an Israeli air strike, was ordered to leave the U.S. with her husband and barred from ever returning.
It followed revocation of her legal status in part prompted by protests in January that “the daughter of a terrorist” was working in the school’s cancer research hospital.
Contributor Lowell Cauffiel is the author of the New York Times true crime best seller House of Secrets and nine other crime novels and nonfiction titles. See lowellcauffiel.com for more.
