Iran promises to avenge U.S. killing of top commander Soleimani

[jamesDDI]

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iran threatened on Friday to hit back hard after a U.S. air strike in Baghdad killed Qassem Soleimani, commander of Iran’s elite Quds Force and architect of its growing military influence in the Middle East. 

Soleimani, a general, was regarded as the second most powerful figure in Iran after Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. 

The overnight attack, authorized by President Donald Trump, marked a dramatic escalation in a “shadow war” in the Middle East between Iran and the United States and its allies, principally Israel and Saudi Arabia. 

Top Iraqi militia commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, an adviser to Soleimani, was also killed in the attack. 

Iran has been locked in a long conflict with the United States that escalated sharply last week with an attack on the U.S. embassy in Iraq by pro-Iranian militiamen following a U.S. air raid on the Kataib Hezbollah militia, founded by Muhandis. 

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Responding to the strike, Iraq’s prime minister said Washington had violated a deal for keeping U.S. troops in his country. Israel put its army on high alert and U.S. allies in Europe including Britain, France and Germany voiced concerns about an escalation in tensions. 

The Pentagon said the “U.S. military has taken decisive defensive action to protect U.S. personnel abroad by killing Qassem Soleimani”. Trump ordered the strike to disrupt future Iranian attack plans, it said. 

U.S. officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Soleimani was killed in a drone strike. Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said he was killed in an attack by U.S. helicopters. 

The U.S. embassy in Baghdad urged all American citizens to depart Iraq immediately. 

Concern about disruption to Middle East oil supplies, including shipping crude through the Gulf, pushed prices up nearly $3 a barrel. U.S. employees of foreign oil companies in Basra were preparing to leave the country, but Iraq’s oil ministry said output and exports were unaffected. 

Khamenei said harsh revenge awaited the “criminals” who killed Soleimani. His death, though bitter, would double the motivation of the resistance against the United States and Israel, he said. 

In a statement carried by state television he called for three days of national mourning. 

Khamenei quickly appointed Soleimani’s deputy, Brigadier General Esmail Ghaani, to replace him as Quds Force head. The force’s agenda “will be unchanged from the time of his predecessor,” Khamenei said in a statement. 

‘HEROES NEVER DIE’ 

As leader of the Quds Force, the foreign arm of the Revolutionary Guards, Soleimani, 62, had a key role in fighting in Syria and Iraq. 

Over two decades he was at the forefront of projecting the Islamic Republic’s military influence across the Middle East, acquiring celebrity status at home and abroad. 

FILE PHOTO: Combination photo of Iranian Revolutionary Guard Commander Qassem Soleimani (L) and Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, a commander in the Popular Mobilization Forces. REUTERS/Stringer/Thaier al-Sudani

Iranian state television presenters wore black and broadcast footage of Soleimani peering through binoculars across a desert and greeting a soldier, and of Muhandis speaking to followers. 

President Hassan Rouhani said the assassination would make Iran more decisive in resisting the United States, while the Revolutionary Guards said anti-U.S. forces would exact revenge across the Muslim world. 

Hundreds of Iranians marched toward Khamenei’s compound in central Tehran to convey their condolences. 

“I am not a pro-regime person but I liked Soleimani. He was brave and he loved Iran, I am very sorry for our loss,” said housewife Mina Khosrozadeh in Tehran. 

In Soleimani’s hometown, Kerman, people wearing black gathered in front of his father’s house, crying as they listened to a recitation of verses from the Koran. 

“Heroes never die. It cannot be true. Qassem Soleimani will always be alive,” said Mohammad Reza Seraj, a high school teacher. 

Trump, who is facing impeachment charges, made no immediate comment but posted a picture of the U.S. flag on Twitter. 

U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat and strong critic of the Republican president, said the attack was carried out without consultation with Congress and without authorization for the use of military force against Iran. 

Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi condemned the killings as a violation of the conditions of the U.S. military presence in Iraq and an act of aggression that breached Iraq’s sovereignty and would lead to war. 

Iraq’s top Shi’ite cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani called the killings a breach of sovereignty and international agreements. He urged all concerned parties to exercise restraint. 

Israel has long regarded Soleimani as a major threat. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu cut short a trip to Greece and Israeli Army Radio said the military had gone on heightened alert. 

The slain commander’s Quds Force, along with paramilitary proxies from Lebanon’s Hezbollah to Iraq’s Popular Mobilisation Forces grouping of Iran-backed militias - battle-hardened militias armed with missiles - has ample means to respond. 

Slideshow (31 Images)

In September, U.S. officials blamed Iran for a missile and drone attack on oil installations of Saudi state energy giant Saudi Aramco. 

Iran, for its part, has absorbed scores of air strikes and missile attacks, mainly carried out by Israel against its fighters and proxies in Syria and Iraq. 

LEGENDARY FIGURE 

Analysts say Iran is likely to respond forcefully to the targeting of Soleimani, who had survived several assassination attempts against him by Western, Israeli and Arab agencies over the past two decades. 

The Quds Force, tasked with carrying out operations beyond Iran’s borders, shored up support for Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad when he looked close to defeat in the civil war raging since 2011 and also helped militias defeat Islamic State in Iraq. 

Soleimani became head of the force in 1998, after which he quietly strengthened Iran’s ties with Hezbollah in Lebanon, Syria’s government and Shi’ite militia groups in Iraq. 

Muhandis oversaw Iraq’s PMF, an alliance of paramilitary groups mostly comprising Iran-backed Shi’ite militias that was formally integrated into Iraqi armed forces. 

His Kataib Hezbollah militia, which received battlefield training from Lebanon’s Hezbollah, has long targeted U.S. forces and was one of the earliest groups to send fighters to Syria to support Assad. 

 

 

 

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-iraq-security-blast/iran-promises-to-avenge-u-s-killing-of-top-commander-soleimani-idUSKBN1Z11K8

[jamesDDI]

Usa are preparing for a forthcoming Iranian Bush/Iraq invasion. I pray for them, Iran is not Iraq, this time hope Us will be destroy.

Italy is a friend of Iran, there are many Iranians here who study English in university. I don't want a war against Iran. 

[Sylence]

Cowardly act. bunch of cowards, killing people like that.

 

[Sylence]

Iraq should be empty from any US forces, it's not their country to come in and kill people. I bet stupids in the white house think that drone pilot is a hero.

[steven36]

Pompeo says U.S. strike on Iranian commander in response to imminent attack

 

ASHINGTON (Reuters) - A U.S. air strike in Baghdad that killed a top Iranian commander aimed to disrupt an “imminent attack” that would have endangered Americans in the Middle East, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in television interviews on Friday.

 

Pompeo, in interviews on Fox News and CNN, declined to discuss many details of the alleged threat but said it was “an intelligence based assessment” that drove the U.S. decision to target Qassem Soleimani, the commander of Iran’s elite Quds Force.

 

“He was actively plotting in the region to take actions — a big action as he described it — that would have put dozens if not hundreds of American lives at risk. We know it was imminent,” Pompeo told CNN.

 

“These were threats that were located in the region,” Pompeo added. “Last night was the time that we needed to strike to make sure that this imminent attack ... was disrupted.”

 

Iran has threatened to retaliate after the overnight U.S. air strike against the second most powerful figure in Iran that marked a dramatic escalation in the Iran-U.S. conflict in the Middle East.

 

Pompeo said the United States remains committed to de-escalation with Iran but will defend itself. He added that the United States has fortified its assets in the region and is prepared for any possible retaliation, including a cyberattack.

 

He added that he could only confirm that Soleimani had been killed in the strike.

 

Source

[monstertruckpa]

Iran is controlled by the deepstate cabal, shadow government 

satanic personalities as John kerry, Obama, Hilary, bush and globalists are its friends. 

They set the bait so that us-army will take the bait to bring the war.

They're all false flag attacks, created by people more powerful than Trump and his military.

They all work for dark forces.

[monstertruckpa]

The predictions are written in various ancient texts, that the shadows do not care about creating a genocide or dying on the spot, they are megalomaniacs, they have demons living in them in their flesh.

[steven36]

Dozens of U.S. oil workers leaving Iraq after air strike

 

 

BASRA, Iraq (Reuters) - Dozens of U.S. citizens working for foreign oil companies in the southern Iraqi oil city of Basra were leaving the country on Friday, the Oil Ministry said, after a U.S. air strike killed a top Iranian commander in Iraq.

 

The U.S. embassy in Baghdad urged all its citizens to leave Iraq immediately, hours after the U.S. killed Iranian Quds Force leader Qassem Soleimani and Iraqi militia commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis.

 

Iraqi officials said the evacuation would not affect operations, production or exports.

 

Company sources told Reuters earlier the workers were expected to fly out of the country.

 

Oil production in Iraq, the second-biggest producer in the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, was about 4.62 million barrels per day (bpd), according to a Reuters survey of OPEC output.

 

A spokesman for BP (BP.L), which operates the giant Rumaila oil field near Basra, declined to comment. Rumaila produced around 1.5 million bpd as recently as April.

 

Italian energy group Eni (ENI.MI) said Iraq’s Zubair oil field, which produced around 34,000 bpd net to Eni last year - a fraction of the field’s overall output - was “proceeding regularly”. Eni said the group was closely monitoring the situation in Iraq.

 

Genel (GENL.L), an oil producer in the autonomous region of Kurdistan in northern Iraq, said its operations were continuing normally. It did not comment on any staff movements.

 

Gulf Keystone Petroleum (GKP.L), which also operates in Kurdistan, said “while these events are taking place in the south of Iraq, Gulf Keystone is closely monitoring the situation and operations at (the) Shaikan (field) are carrying on as per usual”.

 

DNO (DNO.OL) did not immediately reply to a request for comment.

 

Source

[sternog]

@steven36

What former CIA director Pompeo says, is a matter of no importance
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DPt-zXn05ac

[steven36]

12 minutes ago, sternog said:

What former CIA director Pompeo says, is a matter of no importance

Well it sort of is as long as hes U.S. Secretary of State regardless  of his shady past .

Duties of the Secretary of State

• Serves as the President’s principal adviser on U.S. foreign policy;
• Conducts negotiations relating to U.S. foreign affairs;
• Grants and issues passports to American citizens and exequaturs to foreign consuls in the United States;
• Advises the President on the appointment of U.S. ambassadors, ministers, consuls, and other diplomatic representatives;
• Advises the President regarding the acceptance, recall, and dismissal of the representatives of foreign governments;
• Personally participates in or directs U.S. representatives to international conferences, organizations, and agencies;
• Negotiates, interprets, and terminates treaties and agreements;
• Ensures the protection of the U.S. Government to American citizens, property, and interests in foreign countries;
• Supervises the administration of U.S. immigration laws abroad;
• Provides information to American citizens regarding the political, economic, social, cultural, and humanitarian conditions in foreign countries;
• Informs the Congress and American citizens on the conduct of U.S. foreign relations;
• Promotes beneficial economic intercourse between the United States and other countries;
• Administers the Department of State;
• Supervises the Foreign Service of the United States.

Everybody knows  the CIA never follow for the law  .

[sternog]

Pompeo lies many times, and it's a proven fact. He lies about Venezuela for example - his bs didn't help much with the failed attempt of Maduro's removal. Trump certainly failed with Venezuela, North Korea, will fail elsewhere - foreign policy should be based on diplomacy instead of threats. Wise words from Bernie:

 

[mclaren85]

If I was the man in Kremlin, I would press the red button without any hesitation.

[steven36]

1 hour ago, sternog said:

Pompeo lies many times, and it's a proven fact. He lies about Venezuela for example - his bs didn't help much with the failed attempt of Maduro's removal. Trump certainly failed with Venezuela, North Korea, will fail elsewhere - foreign policy should be based on diplomacy instead of threats. Wise words from Bernie:

 

Of course  they will use  that General's death  to try and get votes in November  . I predicted they would impeach Trump as soon as soon as he got elected 3 years ago .   Also I predicted they most likely be  a war 3 years ago . Because thats the way it's been every since after Reagan hes the last Republican that served that  there was no war. If the Senate dont vote Trump out and they most likely want. he most likely going to start a war   .

 

Russian Senator Calls U.S. Killing of Top Iranian General ‘Worst Case Scenario,’ Expects New U.S.-Iran Clashes

https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2020/01/03/russian-senator-calls-us-killing-of-top-iranian-general-worst-case-scenario-expects-new-us-iran-clashes-a68805

[sternog]

North Korea didn't get rid of a single atomic bomb, NK is ready to survive sanctions and continue nuclear tests - no longer willing to exchange its security for sanctions relief.
After Iran's national hero (who did a lot in helping to defeat Daesh in the Middle East) Soleimani was killed, Iran will now act more tough instead of submitting to the will of the US - will become more inclined to possess nuclear weapons for instance.

[steven36]

1 minute ago, sternog said:

North Korea didn't get rid of a single atomic bomb, NK is ready to survive sanctions and continue nuclear tests - no longer willing to exchange its security for sanctions relief.
After Iran's national hero (who did a lot in helping to defeat Daesh in the Middle East) Soleimani was killed, Iran will now act more tough instead of submitting to the will of the US - will become more inclined to possess nuclear weapons for instance.

Yes that what that article above says that Russian Senator Konstantin Kosachev said . 

[aum]

We (humans) say otherwise but we love to fight for dominance and power.  The bigger power we are more we like to flaunt it, otherwise of what use is our weapons.

 

Hope the thread gets locked soon.  Thanks.

[Jogs]

Until around the 70s USA and Iran were allies.

Arms manufacturers need a war to make lots of money, so every decade we see a war by one country.

Also as its really difficult to find out how much money actually gets spent on a war, some people (politicians) can easily pocket a lot of money.

War is the best business in the world.

[steven36]

36 minutes ago, Jogs said:

Until around the 70s USA and Iran were allies.

Only reason they stayed Allies that long was the  CIA  overthrow Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh, restoring to power to Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi. 

 

They put a goverment Iran  didn't want back in office in 1953  . And it was the USA who gave Iran in 1967  a nuclear reactor along with weapons-grade 93 percent enriched uranium fuel in 1967 .

 

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-iraq-security-blast-relations-timelin/timeline-u-s-iran-relations-from-1953-coup-to-2020-commander-killing-idUSKBN1Z21R8

 

If the CIA  had not put a puppet goverment in  they would of  ended that in 1953 it was going to happen sooner or latter just the CIA postpone it for awhile but you can't stop fate . Same thing happen in Iraq and thats going to end soon because of  last night.

 

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-iraq-security-blast-primeminister/rival-shiite-leaders-in-iraq-call-for-u-s-troop-expulsion-in-rare-show-of-unity-idUSKBN1Z20JO

 

Saying people  are allies is not as things appeared  in the News  back then most people in Iran  wanted the USA  backed goverment out of Iran for 20 years before it happen because the CIA put that Goverment back in place.  Same with Iraq  that war was for Oil  . They never  wanted a USA backed Government  . Its was all staged  to make it look like they were allies when they resented the USA for messing with there Governments the whole time.

[jamesDDI]

We are close.

[sternog]

FLASHBACK: Trump Predicted Obama Would Attack Iran To Get Re-Elected

[steven36]

U.S. to send 3,000 troops to Middle East after embassy attack, Soleimani killing

 

The soldiers will join roughly 650 others already deployed to the region and stay there for some 60 days, officials said.

 

WASHINGTON — The United States is sending approximately 3,000 soldiers to the Middle East after thousands of people stormed the compound of the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, three U.S. defense officials and one U.S. military official confirmed to NBC News on Friday.

 

The news came hours after an American airstrike killed Gen. Qassem Soleimani, the commander of Iran's secretive Quds Force and one of the country's most powerful figures, but U.S. defense officials said the deployments were not in response to the strike.

 

The deployment of additional soldiers from a brigade of the 82nd Airborne Division, based at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, comes after thousands of people, most of them affiliated with the Iran-backed Shiite militia group Kataeb Hezbollah, descended on the embassy compound Tuesday.

 

The soldiers will join roughly 650 others already deployed to the region and stay there for some 60 days, the officials said. The immediate response force will be spread throughout the region, with some soldiers in Iraq and others in Kuwait.

 

U.S. and Iraqi officials said the attack on the embassy compound began as a large crowd gathered after funerals for some of those who were killed in U.S. airstrikes Sunday.

 

The protesters marched to the embassy compound, where they tried several times to breach security and enter the main building, according to a U.S. official with knowledge of the situation, who said the crowd threw Molotov cocktails over the walls and tried to burn down the entry gates.

 

At least 25 militia fighters were killed in the U.S. airstrikes Sunday on weapons depots in Iraq and Syria that the United States said were linked to Kataeb Hezbollah.

 

This is a developing story, check back for updates

 

Source

[Karlston]

Topic locked.

 

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