52 Lock Up: Qasem Soleimani/Nika Nokubin

Welcome back to 52 Lock Up, I am your Appletini Cadma of Bitten Apple TV. 52 lock up is a series I started to talk about one of my biggest passions of true crime. A new episode on every Cadmaniac Monday for 52 Mondays. Hope you guys enjoy, be sure to comment feedback, like and subscribe. And just in case, viewer discretion is advised.

Today’s episode begins in 2020, or at least that’s what the news was told while this case is still being unfolded like laundry. Qasem Soleimani was a Iranian Major General. He was perceived as an extremely powerful figure in Iran. As commander of the Revolutionary Guards overseas operations arm, the Quds Force (which is a covert mission impossible kind of team including the funding, guidance, weapons, intelligence and logical support to allied governments and armed groups that included Hezbollah, Hamas and Islamic Jihad) and he was revered as an architect of Iranian policies across the Middle East.

For the curious minded Hezbollah means “Party of God”, it is a Lebanese Shia Islamist political party and militant group, led by its Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah since 1992. Hamas is an acronym that in English means Islamic Resistance Movement; it is a Palestinian Sunni-Islamic fundamentalist, militant, and nationalist organization. The Islamic Jihad Movement in Palestine, known in the West as simply Palestinian Islamic Jihad, is a Damascus-based Palestinian Islamist organization formed in 1981.

The United States 45th President described Soleimani as the “number one terrorist anywhere in the world”. He stated that under his guidance the Quds Force was targeting, injuring and murdered hundreds of American Civilians and service men” over the last 20 years; and the General had orchestrated a rocket attack in Iraq in December that killed an American contractor. Trump’s response was to order an air strike to stop a war between the US and Iran. Trump stated "Soleimani was plotting imminent and sinister attacks on American diplomats and military personnel, but we caught him in the act and terminated him," (BBC News, Qasem Soleimani: US strike on Iran general was unlawful, UN expert says 2020).

This is all occurring during the Persian Gulf crisis that began in 2019 and continues to this day. The Persian Gulf crisis began after the United States withdrew from a 2015 nuclear deal with Iran in 2018, reimposed sanctions and then accused Iranian elements of fomenting a campaign to harass the U.S. forces in the region during 2019. So this was getting hot. December 27th 2019 in Iraq at K-1 Air Base (which hosts for Iraqi and U.S. personnel) was attacked and ended up killing an American contractor. The response from the U.S. was to send airstrikes across Iraq and Syria and it was reported that 25 of the Kata’ib Hezbollah militiamen. They responded by the Shia militiamen and supporters attacking the U.S. embassy in the Green Zone or also known as the International Zone of Baghdad.

A drone that was located at Baghdad International Airport was sent to target and kill Soleimani while he was making his way to meet Iraqi Prime Minister Adil Abdul-Mahdi in Baghdad. During this air strike, five Iraqi nationals and four other Iranian nationals died alongside of Soleimani. It was reported that 10 people were killed. Brigadier General Hossein Pourjafari, Colonel Shahroud Mozafarinia, Major Hadi Taremi, Captain Vahid Zamanian, Deputy Chairman Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis who also backed the Kata’ib Hezbollah Militia, chief of protocol and public relations Muhammed Reza al-Jaberi,Mohammad al-Shibani, Hassan Abdul Hadi and Heydar Ali; all died along side with Soleimani.

This was declared as a state of terrorism by Iran and of course there was a response within five days Iran fired at two Iraqi military bases hosting US forces. No US troops died, but more than 100 suffered traumatic brain injuries. The Iraqi government stated the attack had undermined its national sovereignty and considered it to be a breach of its bilateral security agreements with the U.S. and an act of aggression against its officials. On 5 January 2020, the Iraqi parliament passed a non-binding resolution to expel all foreign troops from its territory while, on the same day, Iran took the fifth and last step of reducing commitments to the 2015 international nuclear deal. Naturally Soleimani's killing sharply escalated tensions between the U.S. and Iran.

Agnes Callamard did some digging and presented to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva that the US had provided no evidence that showed Soleimani specifically was planning an imminent attack against US interests. She stated “Major General Soleimani was in charge of Iran military strategy, and actions, in Syria and Iraq. But absent an actual imminent threat to life, the course of action taken by the US was unlawful." (BBC News, Qasem Soleimani: US strike on Iran general was unlawful, UN expert says 2020).

I know what you’re thinking what does that have to do with true crime? Back to 2022, meet Nevada’s 21 year old Nika Nikoubin, a former cheerleader, Cycle Bar worker and even a debate team coach at UCLA; or at least that’s what her Facebook page shows. Nika is living her best life attending UCLA and living in Nevada when she begins dating, the case is too fresh to know if this was planned that far ahead or if it was spontaneous. She’s on a dating app and meets a guy (he has been unnamed so far for some reason) and they finally meet up. They agreed to meet at Sunset Station Hotel on March 5th 2022 and rented a room together. While they were in the room things were getting hot and heavy and they began having sex. Nika wanted to spice things up and put a blindfold on the man and turned off the lights. Several minutes later Nika is feeling like a praying mantis and stabs the guy in the neck.

Her reasoning to stab him in the neck was for revenge against the U.S. air strike against Qaseem Soleimani in 2020. After he was stabbed he pushed Nika off of him and ran out of the room to call 911. Nika also ran out of the room telling a hotel employee that she just stabbed a man. When she was captured she told them why she did it and said she listed to a song “gravedigger” to motivate her to do the killing.

Currently the man’s condition are not available but I am also curious to why his name was not released and if he was an official that was part of what she was so focused on. Clark County Jail records show that Nikoubin, is being held on a potential charge of attempted murder, two charges of battery, and one charge of burglarizing a business; with a bail of $60,000.

So yeah that’s today’s episode; it caught my attention because of the music thing and how very I’m starring in my own “Black Widow” film meets “There’s Something About Mary” kinda vibe. I do not know if she was successful in killing him, if he’s recovering or his name. When you see the reason that she claims and look back at the last two years it does make you wonder. Well hope you guys enjoyed today’s show and I will catch you next time.

References

https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=403424443193784&set=pcb.403424496527112

https://www.facebook.com/nika.nik.7140

https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/what-hezbollah

https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/what-hamas

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/23/world/middleeast/iran-israel.html

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/06/world/middleeast/palestinians-escape-prison-israel.html

https://www.usnews.com/news/us/articles/2022-03-12/police-woman-stabbed-date-in-revenge-of-iranians-killing

https://www.8newsnow.com/crime/police-woman-stabs-date-in-las-vegas-area-hotel-room-in-relation-for-u-s-drone-strike-that-killed-iranian-leader/

https://meaww.com/who-is-nika-nikoubin-las-vegas-woman-stabs-date-to-avenge-qasem-soleimanis-death

https://www.i24news.tv/en/news/international/americas/1647155491-police-woman-stabs-date-in-neck-to-avenge-us-killing-of-soleimani

https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/police-woman-stabbed-date-revenge-iranians-killing-83413525

https://www.timesofisrael.com/woman-stabs-her-date-in-neck-in-revenge-for-us-killing-of-iranian-general-in-2020/

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-49069083

https://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/ny-nikoubin-stab-date-retaliation-iran-soleimani-20220313-pcrcf76jnba2np7jn4yixquzci-story.html

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-53345885

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/03/world/middleeast/suleimani-dead.html

https://www.timesofisrael.com/iran-biden-white-house-also-responsible-for-soleimani-killing/