• About Us
  • Who Are We
  • Work With Us
Wednesday, March 29, 2023
No Result
View All Result
NEWSLETTER
The Globe Post
39 °f
New York
44 ° Fri
46 ° Sat
40 ° Sun
41 ° Mon
No Result
View All Result
The Globe Post
No Result
View All Result
Home World Middle East

Anti-US Chants as Iraqis Mourn Commanders Killed A Year Ago

Staff Writer by Staff Writer
01/03/21
in Middle East
Iranian Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani

Iranian Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani (C) attends Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's (not seen) meeting with the IRGC in Tehran. Photo: AFP

Share on FacebookShare on Twitter

Thousands of Iraqi mourners chanted “revenge” and “no to America” on Sunday, one year after a US drone strike killed Iran’s revered commander Qasem Soleimani and his Iraqi lieutenant Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis.

Pro-Iranian supporters, many dressed in black, massed in Baghdad’s central Tahrir Square to also condemn Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhemi as a “coward” and an “agent of the Americans”.

The anniversary of the Baghdad drone strike — which brought Washington and Tehran to the brink of war in early 2020 — was also marked in recent days across Iran and by supporters in Syria, Lebanon, Yemen and elsewhere.

The lead up to the commemorations of the Shiite Muslim commanders sharply heightened regional tensions in the weeks before US President Donald Trump, who ordered the killings, leaves the White House.

In Iraq, the powerful, state-sponsored pro-Iranian Hashed al-Shaabi paramilitary network which Muhandis commanded has led the angry vigils for him and General Soleimani, who headed the foreign operations arm of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

Sunday’s Baghdad rally was a show of force for the armed groups, which despite being formally integrated into the Iraqi security apparatus have increasingly challenged the Kadhemi government.

Thousands of mourners had Saturday night converged at the spot near Baghdad’s international airport where the US hit the two vehicles and killed Soleimani, Muhandis and eight other men.

By candlelight, they honored their “martyrs” and condemned the American “great Satan” at the site where nearby walls are still pockmarked by shrapnel.

“We tell America and the enemies of Islam that they can inflict the greatest sacrifices on us, but we will continue to resist despite the bloodshed,” said Hashed supporter Batul Najjar.

The Hashed — factions of which Washington has blamed for rocket strikes against its embassy and troops in Iraq — has increasingly challenged Kadhemi, whom it accuses of having helped plot the drone strikes. 

This has brought to the boil once more tensions in the war-battered and politically fragile country which the United States invaded in 2003, and which remains mired in economic crisis amid low oil prices and the coronavirus pandemic.

War of words

Ahead of the Tahrir Square rally, Ahmed Assadi, one of the leaders of Hashed’s parliamentary bloc, vowed: “Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, we will go out by the millions to brandish your portrait on Tahrir”.

Giant posters of Soleimani and Muhandis were hung up above the iconic square, which in late 2019 became the center of large anti-government protests, from an abandoned building known as the Turkish restaurant that was once the protesters’ unofficial headquarters.

“We have come to say no to America and to any other occupier who wants to come and defile our land,” one of the mourners, Oum Mariam, told AFP.

After the Soleimani killing, Iraq’s parliament initially voted to expel US forces from the country — but despite some withdrawals, about 3,000 American troops remain in the country.

Amid the flaring tensions, Iraqis, and many in the wider region, are nervously watching for any signs of escalation before Trump leaves the White House on January 20.

Trump confronted decades-old foe Iran by withdrawing in 2018 from its nuclear deal with world powers and launching a “maximum pressure” campaign to further economically punish and isolate the country.

Trump recently tweeted that the US was hearing “chatter of additional attacks against Americans in Iraq”, and warned that “if one American is killed, I will hold Iran responsible. Think it over.”

In recent days, US B-52 bombers have flown across the region for the second time in less than a month but, in what some read as a sign of deescalation, Washington has also ordered its Nimitz aircraft carrier to leave the Gulf.

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards chief Hossein Salami vowed Saturday to respond to any “action the enemy takes” with “a reciprocal, decisive and strong blow”.

Iran and the United States — bitter foes since the 1979 Iranian Islamic revolution and the US embassy hostage crisis in Tehran — have twice come to the brink of war since June 2019, most recently after Soleimani’s killing.

Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif on Thursday accused Trump of aiming to fabricate a “pretext for war”, after the president blamed Tehran for a December 20 rocket strike on the US embassy in Baghdad.

In the war of words, Zarif on Saturday also claimed that, in Iraq, “Israeli agent-provocateurs are plotting attacks against Americans (to put) Trump in a bind with a fake casus belli”.

Was General Soleimani’s Assassination a Sound Decision?
ShareTweet
Staff Writer

Staff Writer

AFP with The Globe Post

Related Posts

Donald Trump
National

US Supreme Court Freezes Release of Trump Tax Returns

by Staff Writer
November 1, 2022
Donald Trump
National

US Capitol Riot Probe Votes to Subpoena Trump to Testify

by Staff Writer
October 13, 2022
Steve Bannon
National

Former Trump Advisor Bannon Charged With Fraud in New York

by Staff Writer
September 8, 2022
US President Donald Trump
Opinion

Donald Trump Thanks You for Your Sacrifice

by Stephen J. Lyons
August 17, 2022
Mar-A-Lago raid
National

FBI Raid on Trump’s Home Ignites Political Firestorm

by Staff Writer
August 9, 2022
US President Donald Trump
Opinion

Owning the Words and the Libs

by Stephen J. Lyons
June 16, 2022
Next Post
A single falcon can fetch up to tens of thousands of dollars on the black market.

Poachers' Paradise: Gulf Hunts Fuel Pakistan Falcon Trafficking

Vietnamese bloggers Pham Chi Dung (R), Nguyen Tuong Thuy (L) and Le Huu Minh Tuan (3rd L)

Vietnam Jails Three Critics Ahead of Major Party Congress

Recommended

Damage from a series of powerful storms and at least one tornado is seen on March 25, 2023, in Rolling Fork, Mississippi

After Tornado Kills 25, Mississippi Faces More Extreme Weather

March 26, 2023
Transgender Army veteran Tanya Walker speaks to protesters in Times Square near a military recruitment centre

Tennessee Is A Drag on the First Amendment

March 26, 2023
participants of an artificial intelligence conference

How AI Could Upend the World Even More Than Electricity or the Internet

March 19, 2023
Chinese President Xi Jinping

China’s Path to Economic Dominance

March 15, 2023
Heavily armed police inspect the area near a Jehovah's Witness church where several people have been killed in a shooting in Hamburg, northern Germany

Eight Dead in Shooting at Jehovah’s Witness Hall in Germany

March 10, 2023
Myanmar Rohingya refugees look on in a refugee camp in Teknaf, in Bangladesh's Cox's Bazar, on November 26, 2016

US Announces $26M in New Aid for Rohingya

March 8, 2023

Opinion

Transgender Army veteran Tanya Walker speaks to protesters in Times Square near a military recruitment centre

Tennessee Is A Drag on the First Amendment

March 26, 2023
Chinese President Xi Jinping

China’s Path to Economic Dominance

March 15, 2023
An earthquake survivor reacts as rescuers look for victims and other survivors in Hatay, a Turkish province where hundreds of buildings were destroyed by the earthquake

Heed the Call of Our Broken World

March 1, 2023
Top view of the US House of Representatives

‘Cringy Awards:’ Who Is the Most Embarrassing US House Representative?

February 13, 2023
Protesters rally against the fatal police assault of Tyre Nichols, outside of the Coleman A. Young Municipal Center in Detroit, Michigan, on January 27, 2023

How Do Violent ‘Monsters’ Take Root?

February 3, 2023
George Santos from the 3rd Congressional district of New York

George Santos for Speaker!

January 16, 2023
Facebook Twitter

Newsletter

Do you like our reporting?
SUBSCRIBE

About Us

The Globe Post

The Globe Post is part of Globe Post Media, a U.S. digital news organization that is publishing the world's best targeted news sites.

submit oped

© 2018 The Globe Post

No Result
View All Result
  • National
  • World
  • Business
  • Interviews
  • Lifestyle
  • Democracy at Risk
    • Media Freedom
  • Opinion
    • Editorials
    • Columns
    • Book Reviews
    • Stage
  • Submit Op-ed

© 2018 The Globe Post