BRKG ***CONFIRMED... Iran's Qassem Soleimani killed in US airstrike*** (i.e. BUCKLE UP!) - Iran counterattacks
Maryh
Veteran Member
Thanks for asking. She's at Camp Smith but has two other offices. I can't wait til she retires!
mzkitty
I give up.
[B]Eva J. Koulouriotis - إيفا كولوريوتي[/B] @[B]evacool_[/B] 9m9 minutes ago
What is confirmed now is that 7 people were killed by an American drone attack on a convoy of an important leading figure of the Popular Mobilization Units in the Taji region, north of#Baghdad. #Iraq #Iran #IRGC #PMU #USA
What is confirmed now is that 7 people were killed by an American drone attack on a convoy of an important leading figure of the Popular Mobilization Units in the Taji region, north of
Vegas321
Live free and survive
Lopped off another Snake head... All leaders of Iran's Military and Proxy forces are marked for dust.
Vegas321
Live free and survive
mzkitty
I give up.
[B]Haider[/B] @[B]haider_husseini[/B] 4m4 minutes ago
#BREAKING video shows another airstrike on taji in #Baghdad
Video here:
twitter.com
Video here:
Haider (@haider_husseini) | Twitter
The latest Tweets from Haider (@haider_husseini). Iraqi Storyteller , any opinions in here are totally mine ;). Iraq
twitter.com
mzkitty
I give up.
[B]Sotiri Dimpinoudis[/B] @[B]sotiridi[/B] 2m2 minutes ago
#Breaking: Through Iraqi security officials, we have arrested at least 2 people carrying a box 2 rocket launchers and up to 4 mortars at a newly installed checkpoint in #Baghdad in #Iraq. #US #Iran #Conflict
Hummm....
Posted for fair use.....
apnews.com
‘A more dangerous world’: US killing triggers global alarm
By JOHN LEICESTER
49 minutes ago
PARIS (AP) — Global powers warned Friday that the American airstrike responsible for killing Iran’s top general made the world more dangerous and that escalation could set the entire Mideast aflame. Some U.S. allies suggested Iran shared in the blame by provoking the attack.
The deaths of Gen. Qassem Soleimani and several associates drew immediate cries for revenge from Tehran and a chorus of appeals from other countries seeking reduced tensions between Iran and the United States. As U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called world capitals to defend the attack, diplomats tried to chart a way forward.
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei warned that a “harsh retaliation is waiting” for the U.S. He moved quickly to appoint Soleimani’s deputy, Maj. Gen. Esmail Ghaani, as the new commander of the Revolutionary Guard’s Quds Force, which undertakes the country’s foreign campaigns, including in Syria and Yemen.
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres urged leaders to “exercise maximum restraint,” stressing in a statement that “the world cannot afford another war” in the Persian Gulf.
German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas echoed the U.N. chief saying, “A further escalation that sets the whole region on fire needs to be prevented.” Maas also noted that the assault “followed a series of dangerous Iranian provocations.”
In the United Arab Emirates, which sits across the Gulf from Iran, the minister of state for foreign affairs, Anwar Gargash, called in a tweet for rational engagement and a “calm approach, free of emotion.”
Saudi Arabia, Iran’s top regional rival, added its own voice of caution against “all acts that may lead to aggravating the situation with unbearable consequences.”
The White House sought to justify the killings with a tweet alleging that Soleimani “was actively developing plans to attack American diplomats and service members in Iraq and throughout the region.”
“He should have been taken out many years ago!” U.S. President Donald Trump tweeted. But the president also told reporters: “We took action last night to stop a war. We did not take action to start a war.”
Oil prices surged as investors fretted about Mideast stability. Social media flooded with alarm. Twitter users morbidly turned “WWIII” into the top trending term worldwide.
“We are waking up in a more dangerous world. Military escalation is always dangerous,” France’s deputy minister for foreign affairs, Amelie de Montchalin, told RTL radio.
Russia characterized the killings as “fraught with serious consequences.” Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said there were no legal grounds for the strike and suggested that Trump ordered it with one eye on his re-election campaign.
“The U.S. military were acting on orders of U.S. politicians. Everyone should remember and understand that U.S. politicians have their interests, considering that this year is an election year,” Zakharova said in a TV interview.
Trump’s election opponents characterized him as reckless. Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden said the president “tossed a stick of dynamite into a tinderbox.”
Iran’s allies rallied to its side.
Syria’s Foreign Ministry strongly condemned what it called “treacherous American criminal aggression.” It said the attack reaffirmed U.S. responsibility for the instability in Iraq as part of its policy to “create tensions and fuel conflicts in the countries of the region.”
Former Afghan President Hamed Karzai also condemned the airstrike, saying it violated international laws and risked regional peace and stability He offered condolences to the Iranian government, as did Afghan Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah.
U.S. allies Britain, Germany and Canada suggested that Iran bore some responsibility for the strike near Baghdad’s airport. Iranian state TV said 10 people were killed.
German government spokeswoman Ulrike Demmer described the strike as “a reaction to a whole series of military provocations.” She pointed to attacks on tankers and a Saudi oil facility, among other events.
“We are at a dangerous escalation point,” she said.
The British foreign secretary, Dominic Raab, said his government had “always recognized the aggressive threat” posed by the Quds force.
Following Soleimani’s death, “we urge all parties to de-escalate,” he said. “Further conflict is in none of our interests.”
Canadian Foreign Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne said Soleimani’s “aggressive actions” had “a destabilizing effect in the region and beyond.”
There were warnings the killing could set back efforts to stamp out remnants of the Islamic State group.
A top European Union official, Charles Michel, said “the risk is a generalized flare-up of violence in the whole region and the rise of obscure forces of terrorism that thrive at times of religious and nationalist tensions.”
Italy also warned that increased tensions “risk being fertile terrain for terrorism and violent extremism.” But right-wing Italian opposition leader Matteo Salvini praised Trump for eliminating “one of the most dangerous and pitiless men in the world, an Islamic terrorist, an enemy of the West, of Israel, of rights and of freedoms.”
Trump also won the support of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “for acting swiftly, forcefully and decisively.”
In his calls to explain the strike to world leaders, Pompeo said the U.S. is committed to bringing down tensions that have soared since Iranian-backed militia killed an American contractor and the U.S. responded with strikes on the militia. That set off violent pro-Iran protests outside the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, which in turn set the stage for the killing of Soleimani.
“Doing nothing in this region shows weakness. It emboldens Iran,” Pompeo said. “We don’t seek war with Iran, but we at the same time are not going to stand by and watch the Iranians escalate.”
In the Mideast, the strike provoked waves of fury and fears of worse to come.
Iraq’s most powerful Shiite religious leader, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, said in a speech during Friday prayers that the country must brace for “very difficult times.”
In Iran, a hard-line adviser to the country’s supreme leader who led prayers in Tehran likened U.S. troops in Iraq to “insidious beasts” and said they should be swept from the region.
“I am telling Americans, especially Trump, we will take a revenge that will change their daylight into to a nighttime darkness,” said the cleric, Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami.
___
Associated Press writers Edith M. Lederer at the United Nations, Gregory Katz in London, Christopher Bodeen in Beijing, Geir Moulson and Frank Jordans in Berlin, Daria Litvinova in Moscow, Amir Vahdat in Tehran, Matthew Lee in Washington, Joseph Krauss in Jerusalem, Rob Gillies in Toronto and Aya Batrawy in Dubai contributed to this report.
Posted for fair use.....
'A more dangerous world': US killing triggers global alarm
PARIS (AP) — Global powers warned Friday that the American airstrike responsible for killing Iran’s top general made the world more dangerous and that escalation could set the entire Mideast aflam
apnews.com
‘A more dangerous world’: US killing triggers global alarm
By JOHN LEICESTER
49 minutes ago
PARIS (AP) — Global powers warned Friday that the American airstrike responsible for killing Iran’s top general made the world more dangerous and that escalation could set the entire Mideast aflame. Some U.S. allies suggested Iran shared in the blame by provoking the attack.
The deaths of Gen. Qassem Soleimani and several associates drew immediate cries for revenge from Tehran and a chorus of appeals from other countries seeking reduced tensions between Iran and the United States. As U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called world capitals to defend the attack, diplomats tried to chart a way forward.
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei warned that a “harsh retaliation is waiting” for the U.S. He moved quickly to appoint Soleimani’s deputy, Maj. Gen. Esmail Ghaani, as the new commander of the Revolutionary Guard’s Quds Force, which undertakes the country’s foreign campaigns, including in Syria and Yemen.
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres urged leaders to “exercise maximum restraint,” stressing in a statement that “the world cannot afford another war” in the Persian Gulf.
German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas echoed the U.N. chief saying, “A further escalation that sets the whole region on fire needs to be prevented.” Maas also noted that the assault “followed a series of dangerous Iranian provocations.”
In the United Arab Emirates, which sits across the Gulf from Iran, the minister of state for foreign affairs, Anwar Gargash, called in a tweet for rational engagement and a “calm approach, free of emotion.”
Saudi Arabia, Iran’s top regional rival, added its own voice of caution against “all acts that may lead to aggravating the situation with unbearable consequences.”
The White House sought to justify the killings with a tweet alleging that Soleimani “was actively developing plans to attack American diplomats and service members in Iraq and throughout the region.”
“He should have been taken out many years ago!” U.S. President Donald Trump tweeted. But the president also told reporters: “We took action last night to stop a war. We did not take action to start a war.”
Oil prices surged as investors fretted about Mideast stability. Social media flooded with alarm. Twitter users morbidly turned “WWIII” into the top trending term worldwide.
“We are waking up in a more dangerous world. Military escalation is always dangerous,” France’s deputy minister for foreign affairs, Amelie de Montchalin, told RTL radio.
Russia characterized the killings as “fraught with serious consequences.” Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said there were no legal grounds for the strike and suggested that Trump ordered it with one eye on his re-election campaign.
“The U.S. military were acting on orders of U.S. politicians. Everyone should remember and understand that U.S. politicians have their interests, considering that this year is an election year,” Zakharova said in a TV interview.
Trump’s election opponents characterized him as reckless. Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden said the president “tossed a stick of dynamite into a tinderbox.”
Iran’s allies rallied to its side.
Syria’s Foreign Ministry strongly condemned what it called “treacherous American criminal aggression.” It said the attack reaffirmed U.S. responsibility for the instability in Iraq as part of its policy to “create tensions and fuel conflicts in the countries of the region.”
Former Afghan President Hamed Karzai also condemned the airstrike, saying it violated international laws and risked regional peace and stability He offered condolences to the Iranian government, as did Afghan Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah.
U.S. allies Britain, Germany and Canada suggested that Iran bore some responsibility for the strike near Baghdad’s airport. Iranian state TV said 10 people were killed.
German government spokeswoman Ulrike Demmer described the strike as “a reaction to a whole series of military provocations.” She pointed to attacks on tankers and a Saudi oil facility, among other events.
“We are at a dangerous escalation point,” she said.
The British foreign secretary, Dominic Raab, said his government had “always recognized the aggressive threat” posed by the Quds force.
Following Soleimani’s death, “we urge all parties to de-escalate,” he said. “Further conflict is in none of our interests.”
Canadian Foreign Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne said Soleimani’s “aggressive actions” had “a destabilizing effect in the region and beyond.”
There were warnings the killing could set back efforts to stamp out remnants of the Islamic State group.
A top European Union official, Charles Michel, said “the risk is a generalized flare-up of violence in the whole region and the rise of obscure forces of terrorism that thrive at times of religious and nationalist tensions.”
Italy also warned that increased tensions “risk being fertile terrain for terrorism and violent extremism.” But right-wing Italian opposition leader Matteo Salvini praised Trump for eliminating “one of the most dangerous and pitiless men in the world, an Islamic terrorist, an enemy of the West, of Israel, of rights and of freedoms.”
Trump also won the support of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “for acting swiftly, forcefully and decisively.”
In his calls to explain the strike to world leaders, Pompeo said the U.S. is committed to bringing down tensions that have soared since Iranian-backed militia killed an American contractor and the U.S. responded with strikes on the militia. That set off violent pro-Iran protests outside the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, which in turn set the stage for the killing of Soleimani.
“Doing nothing in this region shows weakness. It emboldens Iran,” Pompeo said. “We don’t seek war with Iran, but we at the same time are not going to stand by and watch the Iranians escalate.”
In the Mideast, the strike provoked waves of fury and fears of worse to come.
Iraq’s most powerful Shiite religious leader, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, said in a speech during Friday prayers that the country must brace for “very difficult times.”
In Iran, a hard-line adviser to the country’s supreme leader who led prayers in Tehran likened U.S. troops in Iraq to “insidious beasts” and said they should be swept from the region.
“I am telling Americans, especially Trump, we will take a revenge that will change their daylight into to a nighttime darkness,” said the cleric, Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami.
___
Associated Press writers Edith M. Lederer at the United Nations, Gregory Katz in London, Christopher Bodeen in Beijing, Geir Moulson and Frank Jordans in Berlin, Daria Litvinova in Moscow, Amir Vahdat in Tehran, Matthew Lee in Washington, Joseph Krauss in Jerusalem, Rob Gillies in Toronto and Aya Batrawy in Dubai contributed to this report.
EMICT
Veteran Member
Right on cue:
Madisonians to rally against war with Iran this Saturday – Tone Madison
The protest is scheduled to begin at the State Capitol at noon.www.tonemadison.com
Well, Bless Their Hearts...
bw
Fringe Ranger
It's how the cognoscenti keep you in your place. Don't destroy their fun.
Posted for fair use......
apnews.com
Trump: Aim of killing Iranian general was to ‘stop a war’
By ROBERT BURNS, LOLITA C. BALDOR and ZEKE MILLER
4 minutes ago
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump said Friday he ordered the killing of a top Iranian general “to stop a war,” not start one, but in the tense aftermath the Pentagon braced for retaliation by sending more troops to the Middle East. Democrats complained that Trump hadn’t consulted Congress, and some worried that the strike made war more likely.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo argued the U.S. case with allies in the Middle East and beyond, asserting that Friday’s drone strike killing Gen. Qassem Soleimani was a necessary act of self defense. He asserted that Soleimani was plotting a series of attacks that endangered many American troops and officials across the Middle East.
The ramifications of Trump’s decision to kill Soleimani were still coming into focus Friday; they could include an end to the U.S. military partnership with Iraq in fighting the Islamic State extremist group. Some Iraqi politicians called the attack, which also killed an Iraqi general, a violation of Iraqi sovereignty and questioned whether U.S. forces should be expelled. The U.S. has about 5,200 troops in Iraq, mostly to train and advise Iraqi forces fighting IS.
In brief remarks to the nation, Trump said the Iranian general had been plotting “imminent and sinister” attacks. At the Pentagon, Army Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the U.S. had “compelling, clear, unambiguous intelligence” of Soleimani plotting violent acts.
“Oh, by the way, it might still happen,” Milley said, referring to the planned attacks.
Trump called Soleimani a ruthless figure who “made the death of innocent people his sick passion. ... We take comfort in knowing that his reign of terror is over.”
The president warned Iran against retaliating. He said the U.S. military has Iranian targets “fully identified” for counter-retaliation. The U.S. has a wide range of offensive and defensive forces in the Gulf area within range of Iran.
Asked about possible retaliation, Milley told reporters, “Is there risk? You’re damn right there’s risk.” He added, “There is a range of possible futures here, and the ball is in the Iranian court.”
As Iran warned of “harsh” reprisals, the U.S. Homeland Security Department watched for trouble brewing on the domestic front and reported “no specific, credible threats” in the first hours after the American attack in Baghdad, said the department’s acting secretary, Chad F. Wolf.
Senior State Department officials, in a briefing for reporters, said the drone strike near the Baghdad international airport was based on intelligence that suggested Soleimani was traveling in the area to put final touches on plans for attacks that would have hit U.S. diplomats, troops and American facilities in Iraq, Lebanon, Syria and elsewhere in the Mideast. The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity under State Department ground rules, would not be more specific about the intelligence but said it clearly called for a decisive U.S. response.
Democrats in Congress questioned the administration’s approach, while making clear they don’t regret Soleimani’s demise. Sen. Mark Warner, a Virginia Democrat, noted that Pompeo said the administration wants to “de-escalate” tensions with Iran.
“I think the jury’s out on that,” Warner said. “I hope they’re successful on that. I think it could have brought in more congressional leaders and allies to help make that case ahead of time.”
Rep. Adam Schiff, a California Democrat, said he has not heard a satisfactory explanation for the timing of the U.S. attack.
“And the question is why the administration chose this moment, why this administration made the decision to remove him from the battlefield and other administrations, both parties, decided that would escalate the risks, not reduce them,” he said.
Fears about the repercussions of killing Soleimani persisted throughout the administrations of President George W. Bush, a Republican, and President Barack Obama, a Democrat, according to officials who served under both. Soleimani, they calculated, was just as dangerous dead and martyred as he was alive and plotting against Americans.
A decades-long U.S. nemesis, Iran holds a range of options for striking back, militarily or otherwise. Tens of thousands of American troops in the Persian Gulf area, including in Iraq and Qatar, are within easy range of Iranian missiles, and Iran has the capability to act more clandestinely with cyber attacks or military proxy strikes on U.S. targets abroad.
Last summer, following a string of intelligence indications that Iran was planning attacks on U.S. targets in the Gulf area, the Pentagon accelerated the deployment of an aircraft carrier to the region and deployed additional missile defenses. In all, about 14,000 additional U.S. troops were sent to the area over the summer and fall, but that did not deter Iran, which is feeling an extreme squeeze from U.S. sanctions that have all but shut off its oil exports.
The final sequence of actions leading to the killing of Soleimani began in October with rocket attacks in Iraq that Washington blamed on Iran-supported Shiite militias. A Dec. 27 rocket attack near Kirkuk killed an American contractor and wounded U.S. and Iraqi soldiers. The U.S. blamed an Iran-backed militia called Kataeb Hezbollah, or KH, and on Dec. 29 it bombed five KH-linked facilities. Two days later, KH militiamen and their supporters stormed the U.S. Embassy compound in Baghdad, an attack Trump cited as evidence that Soleimani deserved to be eliminated.
“The Iranian regime’s aggression in the region, including the use of proxy fighters to destabilize its neighbors, must end and it must end now,” Trump said.
Trump’s final pre-strike consultations were held behind the palm trees at his Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida, where the president has spent two weeks largely out of sight before his impeachment trial in the Senate. In the days before the attack, Trump huddled with aides, including Pompeo and his national security adviser, Robert O’Brien.
After the Soleimani killing, Pompeo announced that he was placing the Iran-backed Iraqi militia Asaib Ahl al-Haq on the State Department’s “foreign terrorist organization” blacklist, which blocks any assets the group may have in U.S. jurisdictions and bars Americans from providing it with material support.
The Pentagon was largely silent Friday on details of the drone strike and its aftermath. Officials announced the deployment of nearly 3,000 additional soldiers from the 82nd Airborne Division at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, to Kuwait as reinforcements. Separately, the 173rd Airborne Brigade, based in Italy, had been placed on alert for possible deployment of parts of the brigade to Lebanon to help defend the U.S. Embassy in Beirut.
The additional troop deployments reflect concerns about potential Iranian retaliatory action. But they also run counter to Trump’s repeated push to extract the United States from Mideast conflicts. He has repeatedly called for withdrawing from Syria and Afghanistan, but over the past year he has greatly increased U.S. troop totals in the Middle East.
More broadly, some congressional Democrats and national security analysts questioned whether the Trump administration is prepared for Iranian retaliation and the prospect of political backlash in Iraq, where American troops are working with Iraqi forces in a sometimes tense partnership against the Islamic State extremist group. The Pentagon said it wants to sustain that work, but some Iraqi leaders said it might be time for U.S. troops to leave.
In Baghdad, Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi condemned the American drone strike, which also killed an Iraqi general who was deputy commander of the Iranian-backed militias in Iraq known as the Popular Mobilization Forces. Abdul-Mahdi called the killings an “aggression against Iraq.” An emergency session of parliament was called for Sunday, and the deputy speaker, Hassan al-Kaabi, said it would make “decisions that put an end to the U.S. presence in Iraq.”
Ordering out American forces would heavily damage Washington’s influence and make the U.S. troop presence in neighboring Syria more tenuous. But Iraq’s leadership is likely to be divided over such a step. President Barham Salih called for “the voice of reason and wisdom to dominate, keeping in mind Iraq’s greater interests.”
___
Associated Press writers Lisa Mascaro, Jonathan Lemire and Matthew Lee contributed.
Trump: Aim of killing Iranian general was to 'stop a war'
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump said Friday he ordered the killing of a top Iranian general “to stop a war,” not start one, but in the tense aftermath the Pentagon braced for retaliation by sending more troops to the Middle East.
apnews.com
Trump: Aim of killing Iranian general was to ‘stop a war’
By ROBERT BURNS, LOLITA C. BALDOR and ZEKE MILLER
4 minutes ago
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump said Friday he ordered the killing of a top Iranian general “to stop a war,” not start one, but in the tense aftermath the Pentagon braced for retaliation by sending more troops to the Middle East. Democrats complained that Trump hadn’t consulted Congress, and some worried that the strike made war more likely.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo argued the U.S. case with allies in the Middle East and beyond, asserting that Friday’s drone strike killing Gen. Qassem Soleimani was a necessary act of self defense. He asserted that Soleimani was plotting a series of attacks that endangered many American troops and officials across the Middle East.
The ramifications of Trump’s decision to kill Soleimani were still coming into focus Friday; they could include an end to the U.S. military partnership with Iraq in fighting the Islamic State extremist group. Some Iraqi politicians called the attack, which also killed an Iraqi general, a violation of Iraqi sovereignty and questioned whether U.S. forces should be expelled. The U.S. has about 5,200 troops in Iraq, mostly to train and advise Iraqi forces fighting IS.
In brief remarks to the nation, Trump said the Iranian general had been plotting “imminent and sinister” attacks. At the Pentagon, Army Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the U.S. had “compelling, clear, unambiguous intelligence” of Soleimani plotting violent acts.
“Oh, by the way, it might still happen,” Milley said, referring to the planned attacks.
Trump called Soleimani a ruthless figure who “made the death of innocent people his sick passion. ... We take comfort in knowing that his reign of terror is over.”
The president warned Iran against retaliating. He said the U.S. military has Iranian targets “fully identified” for counter-retaliation. The U.S. has a wide range of offensive and defensive forces in the Gulf area within range of Iran.
Asked about possible retaliation, Milley told reporters, “Is there risk? You’re damn right there’s risk.” He added, “There is a range of possible futures here, and the ball is in the Iranian court.”
As Iran warned of “harsh” reprisals, the U.S. Homeland Security Department watched for trouble brewing on the domestic front and reported “no specific, credible threats” in the first hours after the American attack in Baghdad, said the department’s acting secretary, Chad F. Wolf.
Senior State Department officials, in a briefing for reporters, said the drone strike near the Baghdad international airport was based on intelligence that suggested Soleimani was traveling in the area to put final touches on plans for attacks that would have hit U.S. diplomats, troops and American facilities in Iraq, Lebanon, Syria and elsewhere in the Mideast. The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity under State Department ground rules, would not be more specific about the intelligence but said it clearly called for a decisive U.S. response.
Democrats in Congress questioned the administration’s approach, while making clear they don’t regret Soleimani’s demise. Sen. Mark Warner, a Virginia Democrat, noted that Pompeo said the administration wants to “de-escalate” tensions with Iran.
“I think the jury’s out on that,” Warner said. “I hope they’re successful on that. I think it could have brought in more congressional leaders and allies to help make that case ahead of time.”
Rep. Adam Schiff, a California Democrat, said he has not heard a satisfactory explanation for the timing of the U.S. attack.
“And the question is why the administration chose this moment, why this administration made the decision to remove him from the battlefield and other administrations, both parties, decided that would escalate the risks, not reduce them,” he said.
Fears about the repercussions of killing Soleimani persisted throughout the administrations of President George W. Bush, a Republican, and President Barack Obama, a Democrat, according to officials who served under both. Soleimani, they calculated, was just as dangerous dead and martyred as he was alive and plotting against Americans.
A decades-long U.S. nemesis, Iran holds a range of options for striking back, militarily or otherwise. Tens of thousands of American troops in the Persian Gulf area, including in Iraq and Qatar, are within easy range of Iranian missiles, and Iran has the capability to act more clandestinely with cyber attacks or military proxy strikes on U.S. targets abroad.
Last summer, following a string of intelligence indications that Iran was planning attacks on U.S. targets in the Gulf area, the Pentagon accelerated the deployment of an aircraft carrier to the region and deployed additional missile defenses. In all, about 14,000 additional U.S. troops were sent to the area over the summer and fall, but that did not deter Iran, which is feeling an extreme squeeze from U.S. sanctions that have all but shut off its oil exports.
The final sequence of actions leading to the killing of Soleimani began in October with rocket attacks in Iraq that Washington blamed on Iran-supported Shiite militias. A Dec. 27 rocket attack near Kirkuk killed an American contractor and wounded U.S. and Iraqi soldiers. The U.S. blamed an Iran-backed militia called Kataeb Hezbollah, or KH, and on Dec. 29 it bombed five KH-linked facilities. Two days later, KH militiamen and their supporters stormed the U.S. Embassy compound in Baghdad, an attack Trump cited as evidence that Soleimani deserved to be eliminated.
“The Iranian regime’s aggression in the region, including the use of proxy fighters to destabilize its neighbors, must end and it must end now,” Trump said.
Trump’s final pre-strike consultations were held behind the palm trees at his Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida, where the president has spent two weeks largely out of sight before his impeachment trial in the Senate. In the days before the attack, Trump huddled with aides, including Pompeo and his national security adviser, Robert O’Brien.
After the Soleimani killing, Pompeo announced that he was placing the Iran-backed Iraqi militia Asaib Ahl al-Haq on the State Department’s “foreign terrorist organization” blacklist, which blocks any assets the group may have in U.S. jurisdictions and bars Americans from providing it with material support.
The Pentagon was largely silent Friday on details of the drone strike and its aftermath. Officials announced the deployment of nearly 3,000 additional soldiers from the 82nd Airborne Division at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, to Kuwait as reinforcements. Separately, the 173rd Airborne Brigade, based in Italy, had been placed on alert for possible deployment of parts of the brigade to Lebanon to help defend the U.S. Embassy in Beirut.
The additional troop deployments reflect concerns about potential Iranian retaliatory action. But they also run counter to Trump’s repeated push to extract the United States from Mideast conflicts. He has repeatedly called for withdrawing from Syria and Afghanistan, but over the past year he has greatly increased U.S. troop totals in the Middle East.
More broadly, some congressional Democrats and national security analysts questioned whether the Trump administration is prepared for Iranian retaliation and the prospect of political backlash in Iraq, where American troops are working with Iraqi forces in a sometimes tense partnership against the Islamic State extremist group. The Pentagon said it wants to sustain that work, but some Iraqi leaders said it might be time for U.S. troops to leave.
In Baghdad, Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi condemned the American drone strike, which also killed an Iraqi general who was deputy commander of the Iranian-backed militias in Iraq known as the Popular Mobilization Forces. Abdul-Mahdi called the killings an “aggression against Iraq.” An emergency session of parliament was called for Sunday, and the deputy speaker, Hassan al-Kaabi, said it would make “decisions that put an end to the U.S. presence in Iraq.”
Ordering out American forces would heavily damage Washington’s influence and make the U.S. troop presence in neighboring Syria more tenuous. But Iraq’s leadership is likely to be divided over such a step. President Barham Salih called for “the voice of reason and wisdom to dominate, keeping in mind Iraq’s greater interests.”
___
Associated Press writers Lisa Mascaro, Jonathan Lemire and Matthew Lee contributed.
mzkitty
I give up.
[B]Ava Schiffer[/B] @[B]AvaSchiffer[/B] 5m5 minutes ago
Radar: the Iranian militias are no longer in attack mode but rather on the run.#Breaking #Iran #Iraq #Trump #GOP #defense #investors
[B]Fher Ortiz-Hermida[/B] @[B]Fernand0rtiz[/B] 5m5 minutes ago
#Breaking all major airlines suspend all flights in and out of #Iraq, as #USA occupation forces send the entire 82nd Airborne division to #Kuwait border with Iraq (~4k soldiers), bringing the total acknowledged... https://www.facebook.com/706109727/posts/10158140998844728/ …
Radar: the Iranian militias are no longer in attack mode but rather on the run.
[B]Fher Ortiz-Hermida[/B] @[B]Fernand0rtiz[/B] 5m5 minutes ago
I wonder if they understand they just confirmed their place on one list or another?....Probably don't have that deep of an understanding of the change in "the game".....
Old Greek
Veteran Member
funny - I just looked up the same thing. ( Is my high school degree showing
)
EMICT
Veteran Member
I wonder if they understand they just confirmed their place on one list or another?....Probably don't have that deep of an understanding of the change in "the game".....
It's amazing how one's place on the list, even the 'list' itself, can change depending on who is in charge. Kind of like Freedom Fighter vs Terrorist
mzkitty
I give up.
[B]FS [/B] @[B]FS801209[/B] 6m6 minutes ago
#BREAKING USA places the Asa'ib Ahl al-Haqq, Iraqi radical Shiite group, on the list of terrorist organizations as well as its two leaders Qays and Layth al-Khuz'ali.
jward
passin' thru
funny - I just looked up the same thing. ( Is my high school degree showing
Humm. Dunno. What degree might that be? Tis my love of lyrical language which prompted my search.
mzkitty
I give up.
THE DEAD CAN TWEET !!!
[B]Å Fusion[/B] @[B]AngelicFusion[/B] 3m3 minutes ago
#BREAKING #Iran #Soleimani #Trump #TrumpsWar #NoWarWithIran #WorldWarIII Shibi al-Zaydi, who Iraqi sources were reporting had been killed in tonight's #AirStrikes, has tweeted that he is not dead!
[B]Å Fusion[/B] @[B]AngelicFusion[/B] 3m3 minutes ago
Hummm.......
THE DEAD CAN TWEET !!!
[B]Å Fusion[/B] @[B]AngelicFusion[/B] 3m3 minutes ago
#BREAKING#Iran#Soleimani#Trump#TrumpsWar#NoWarWithIran#WorldWarIII Shibi al-Zaydi, who Iraqi sources were reporting had been killed in tonight's#AirStrikes, has tweeted that he is not dead!
Well it isn't much of a stretch from voting in DNC districts.....
Old Greek
Veteran Member
no offence intended - just never heard the word before. Excellent in math. Nearly failed English. My wife tells everyone I murder the kings English.
mzkitty
I give up.
[B]#KashmirBanayGaPakistan[/B] @[B]NadirZaheer[/B] 1m1 minute ago
#BREAKING A third strike. In the US air raid on the convoy of high-ranking officials in #Sanaa, the capital of #Yemen, it is claimed that Abdulriza Shahlayi, responsible for the Yemen Revolutionary Force of Jerusalem has been killed. #BreakingNew #Yemen #US #Iran #MiddleEast
I believe “chick dragging” means a refuel aircraft accompanied by multiple smaller aircraft for a long range flight. The smaller craft have to refuel during the trip because they don’t have the range on their own. Think of a mother bird with her young flying as a group.
It is definitely going to be a busy weekend.....
AlfaMan
Has No Life - Lives on TB
Dennis is correct.
A tanker plane is the "hen". The aircraft it refuels are the "chicks". The fighters will go wherever necessary to get to the tanker and refuel, hence the term "chick dragging".
A tanker plane is the "hen". The aircraft it refuels are the "chicks". The fighters will go wherever necessary to get to the tanker and refuel, hence the term "chick dragging".
vector7
Dot Collector
Iranian Protesters Burn U.S. Flag Following Death Of Military Leader (3:11)
View: https://youtu.be/in0ol9gj0gs
Doomer Doug
TB Fanatic
Does anybody know if the big Laguna Bani Sadir is still in Basra with
100,000 Shia Militia?
100,000 Shia Militia?