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BAGHDAD, January 4, 2021: Thousands of Iraqi mourners chanted “revenge” and “no to America” on January 3, a year after a US drone strike killed the revered Iranian commander Qasem Soleimani and his Iraqi lieutenant Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis.
Pro-Iranian protesters, many dressed in black, gathered in Baghdad’s central Tahrir Square, where they also condemned Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhemi as a “coward” and an “agent of the Americans.”
The anniversary of the drone strike in Baghdad, which brought Washington and Tehran to the brink of war in early 2020, was also marked in recent days in Iran and by supporters in Syria, Lebanon, Yemen and elsewhere.
The run-up to the commemorations dramatically increased regional tensions in the weeks before US President Donald Trump, who ordered the killings, left the White House.
Iran has held a series of commemorative events for the Shiite “martyr” Soleimani, who has been immortalized in portraits, sculptures, ballads and an upcoming television series.
On January 3, Tehran also unveiled his autobiography, which focuses mainly on his childhood and early adulthood, and a postage stamp in his honor.
In Iraq, the powerful state-sponsored pro-Iranian Hashed al-Shaabi paramilitary network, led by Muhandis, has led the furious vigils for him and General Soleimani, who led the foreign operations arm of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps of Iran.
Sunday’s rally in Baghdad was a show of force for armed groups, which despite being formally integrated into the Iraqi security apparatus, have increasingly challenged the Kadhemi government.
Thousands of mourners had gathered Saturday night at the site near Baghdad’s international airport where the United States ran over 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 scarred 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 Batul Najjar, a Hashed supporter.
The Hashed, factions Washington has blamed for rocket attacks on its embassy and troops in Iraq, have increasingly challenged Kadhemi, whom it accuses of having helped plan the drone strikes.
This has brought tensions to boil once again in the war-battered and politically fragile country that the United States invaded in 2003, and which remains mired in an economic crisis amid low oil prices and the coronavirus pandemic.
War of words
Before the Tahrir Square demonstration, Ahmed Assadi, one of the leaders of the Hashed parliamentary bloc, promised: “Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, we will go out by the millions to brandish his portrait in Tahrir.”
Over the iconic square, which in late 2019 became the center of large anti-government protests, giant posters of Soleimani and Muhandis hung from an abandoned building known as the Turkish restaurant that was once the unofficial headquarters of the protesters. .
“We have come to say no to the United States and to any other occupier who wants to come and desecrate our land,” one of the mourners, Oum Mariam, told AFP.
After Soleimani’s assassination, the Iraqi parliament initially voted to expel US forces, but despite some withdrawals, some 3,000 US troops remain in the country.
Amid mounting tensions, Iraqis, and many in the region at large, are on the lookout for any signs of escalation before Trump leaves the White House on January 20.
Trump has long clashed with Iran by unilaterally withdrawing in 2018 from a nuclear deal between Tehran and world powers and launching a “maximum pressure” campaign to further punish and isolate the country economically.
Trump recently tweeted that the United States was listening to “talk about additional attacks on Americans in Iraq” and warned that “if an American dies, I will hold Iran accountable. Think about it.”
In recent days, US B-52 bombers have flown over the region for the second time in less than a month; and on Sunday night, the Pentagon denied reports that it had ordered its aircraft carrier Nimitz to leave the Gulf, saying that due to “recent threats” from Iran, the ship would stay. The Pentagon statement did not elaborate on the threats.
On Sunday, Hassan Nasrallah, head of the Iranian-backed Lebanese Hezbollah movement, said Soleimani’s death had been a “major blow” but that the withdrawal of US troops from the region remained a “declared objective.”
“Anyone who is betting that assassinations, assassinations, wars, sieges and sanctions will affect the determination of the resistance is wrong,” he said in a televised speech.
The head of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, Hossein Salami, promised on Saturday to respond to any “action taken by the enemy” with “a reciprocal, decisive and strong blow.”
Iran and the United States, staunch enemies since the 1979 Iranian Islamic revolution and the hostage crisis at the US embassy in Tehran, have been on the brink of war twice since June 2019, most recently after Soleimani’s assassination. .
Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif on Thursday accused Trump of trying to fabricate a “pretext for war” after the president blamed Tehran for a December 20 rocket attack on the US embassy. United in Baghdad.
On Sunday, Zarif tweeted that Soleimani had been “Enemy # 1 of extremist terrorists,” that he had been “assassinated by the terrorist-in-chief,” referring to the outgoing US president.
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