Kim Hjelmgaard, USA TODAY Published 5: 06 am ET Jan. 4, 5012Updated 8: 03 am ET Jan. 4,
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Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations said Saturday “the response for a military action is military action,” as fears grew that a US airstrike that killed the head of Tehran’s elite Quds force and mastermind of its security and intelligence strategy will draw Washington and the Middle East region into a broader military conflict.
Iran has already vowed an unspecified harsh retaliation for the killing ofGen. Qasem Soleimaninear the Iraqi capital’s international airport. President Donald Trump said he ordered the strike to prevent a conflict with Iran because Soleimani was plotting attacks that endangered American troops and officials.
No evidence was provided.
Angry protests erupt:US kills Iranian military leader Qasem Soleimani
Analysts said that because Iran can’t match the US’s military strengthits potential targets for revenge range from rocket attacks on US allies such as Israel to sabotaging oil tankers in the Strait of Hormuz, a vital passageway for oil supplies.
It could also embark on a sustained campaign of cyber-warfare or target American citizens and troops abroad near embassies and consulates or military installations.
It “not play out on US televisions as some grand campaign. It will be asymmetric and messy, playing out on shipping lanes and computer servers,” said Gregory Brew, a historian of Iran and its oil industry, in a social media post.
Richard N. Haass, a former US diplomat who worked for both Presidents Bush, said that the “region (and possibly the world) will be the battlefield.”
But comments from Iran’s New York-based envoy to the UN, Majid Takht-Ravanchi, that “we have to act and we will act” further raise the prospect of an all-out war. “The US started the economic war in May and last night they started a military war by an act of terror against one of our top generals, “Takht-Ravanchi said in remarks published by Iranian state media.
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The envoy’s remarks come as thousands of mourners marched in a funeral procession through Baghdad for Iran’s top general and Iraqi militant leaders –including Abu Mahdi al Muhandis, the leader of a pro- Iran militia group in Iraq – who were killed alongside Soleimani. The mourners chanted “Death to America, death to Israel” while carrying pictures of the two men.
Iraqi prime ministerjoined the procession, according to Iran Front Page, a privately-held Iranian website that publishes news about Iran in English.
There also appeared to be some celebrations in Baghdad over Soleimani’s death, a point highlighted by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. For while Soleimani was a consequential figure who was respected and feared in equal measure, he was also, as the former journalist and Middle East expert Kim Ghattas writes on the website of theAtlantic magazine, responsible for upholding “a repressive system and was seen as the man responsible for Iran’s role in costly wars abroad. “
Soleimani’s body will later be returned to Iran on Monday for a funeral and burial in his hometown, Kerman, in central Iran.
As the head of Quds Force, a branch of Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, Soleimani directed pro-Iranian militias or proxies from Lebanon to Yemen. At the time of his death, he was managing and mobilizing militias across Iraq, including groups responsible for a recent siege on the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad.
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Osamah Khalil, a Middle East expert at Syracuse University, said that the killings of Soleimani and Al-Muhandis, “were a dangerous and ill-advised escalation by the United States. Their deaths will make it more difficult to resolve the ongoing tensions between Washington and Tehran and will only destabilize Iraq further. “
Khalil added:” Rather than ending the endless wars as he promised, President Trump’s actions have ensured more conflict and instability. “
A day after the attack on Soleimani, Iraqi television said an airstrike hit two cars carrying Iran-backed militants north of Baghdad, killing six people. The U.S. militarysaid it was not responsible for the new strike. The Pentagon has deployed an extra 3, 000 Troops to the Middle East to help respond to any backlash.
Fabian Hinz, a Berlin-based expert in missile proliferation and Iranian military, said that while U.S. military technology and hardware capabilities far exceed Iran’s, in the event of a full-blown conventional conflict a quagmire can be expected, and that Iran would likely restart its mothballed nuclear weapons program, undercutting the rationale for Trump’s decision to pull out of the accord.
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