Page 5 - MEOG Week 01

MEOG Commentary MEOG
do more to rein in the groups under the Popular Mobilisation Forces.”
Protesters on Thursday occupied some streets in Baghdad, where most government offices and schools have shut down. They accused Iraqi security forces of a double standard – saying the protesters who supported the PMF were not met with a crackdown, as they have been. About 460 people have been killed in protest-re- lated violence over the past three months, with around 25,000 others wounded. Demonstra- tors have warned that these killings, along with kidnappings and different forms of harassment, are an attempt to scare them into halting their movement. But many have persisted, and rallies rocked the city of Diwaniyah on Thursday.
“What happened in front of the US embassy was an attempt to draw people’s eyes away from the popular protests, now in their fourth month,” Ahmed Mohammad Ali, a student protester in Nasiriya, told AFP.
Under siege
The attack on the Kataeb Hezbollah bases was followed by two days of mass protests at the US Embassy in Baghdad by thousands of pro-Ira- nian demonstrators, who laid siege to the embassy that had trapped US diplomats in the compound.
The demonstrators had swarmed outside the embassy, chanting “Death to America!” Some tried to scale the compound’s walls, and others clambered on to the roof of the reception build- ing they had burned the day before.
On the second day of the protests, Iraqi secu- rity forces regained control of the area around the US Embassy in Baghdad after the compound was rocked by a second day of mass protests.
Earlier on Wednesday, security personnel fired tear gas and rubber bullets at hundreds of protesters -- some of whom were seen trying to climb the building’s walls. Witnesses said the protesters had hurled rocks and tried to set fire to the walls and security booths at the embassy’s main entrance.
assassination
The final – and most dramatic – denouement in this episode was what happened next: the assassination by rockets fired from a US drone of Iran’s most powerful military commander, Major General Qasem Soleimani, near Baghdad airport, along with several other Iran-backed military personnel. The 62-year-old had spear- headed Iranian military operations in the Mid- dle East as head of Iran’s elite Quds Force.
President Trump said the general was “directly and indirectly responsible for the deaths of millions of people”.
Soleimani’s killing marks a major escalation in tensions between Washington and Tehran. Under his leadership, Iran had bolstered Hez- bollah in Lebanon and other pro-Iranian mil- itant groups, expanded its military presence in Iraq and Syria and orchestrated Syria’s offen- sive against rebel groups in the country’s long civil war. Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said “severe revenge awaits the crimi- nals” behind the attack. He also announced three days of national mourning.
Soleimani was widely seen as the second most powerful figure in Iran, behind Ayatollah Khamenei. The Quds Force, an elite unit of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, reports directly to the ayatollah and Soleimani was hailed as a heroic national figure. But the US has called the commander and the Quds Force terrorists and holds them responsible for the deaths of hun- dreds of US personnel.
The Pentagon confirmed that US forces had killed Soleimani.
Tweeting again on Friday, Trump said Soleimani had “killed or badly wounded thou- sands of Americans... and was plotting to kill many more” and “should have been taken out many years ago”. “While Iran will never be able to properly admit it, Soleimani was both hated and feared within the country,” he said.
A statement from the Pentagon – the head- quarters of the US Defense Department – said Soleimani had been “developing plans to attack
Week 01 08•January•2019 w w w. N E W S B A S E . c o m P5