Iran promises US ‘nightmare’
Iran is considering 13 scenarios to avenge the killing of a top military commander in Iraq by a US strike, a senior Tehran official said yesterday, as stampede at the funeral of the slain general killed at least 50 people.
Ali Shamkhani, secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, said 13 “revenge scenarios” were being considered, Fars news agency reported. Even the weakest option would prove “a historic nightmare for the Americans,” he said.
In Washington, the US defense secretary denied reports the US military was preparing to withdraw from Iraq, where Tehran has vied with Washington for influence over nearly two decades of war and unrest.
The killing of General Qassem Soleimani, who was responsible for building up Tehran’s network of proxy forces across the Middle East, has prompted mass mourning in Iran.
“Two hundred and thirteen people have been injured and 50 lost their lives because of overcrowding at the funeral procession,” the head of the country’s emergency services, Pirhossein Koolivand, told state TV.
The burial of Soleimani had been postponed, Reuters reported quoting Iran’s ISNA news agency, without adding how long any delay would last.
AFP correspondents in Kerman said the streets were filled with mourners, while others took refuge on hillsides around the city, where the general was to be laid to rest at the martyrs’ cemetery.
Soleimani, the head of the Guards’ Quds Force foreign operations arm, was assassinated on Friday in a US strike near Baghdad international airport, an operation that shocked Iran.
“The enemy killed him unjustly,” the Revolutionary Guards’ top commander, Major General Hossein Salami said, adding the process of “expelling the United States from the region has begun”.
“Our will is firm. We also tell our enemies that we will take revenge, and that if they (strike again) we will set fire to what they love,” he told the sea of black-clad mourners.
“They themselves know well what places I am talking about.”
Yesterday’s funeral comes after days of processions through the southwestern city of Ahvaz and the shrine cities of Qom and Mashhad as well as the capital Tehran.
Senior figures, including supreme leader Ayatollah Khamenei, have said Iran will match the scale of Soleimani’s killing when it responds but that it will choose the time and place.
Yesterday, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, in an interview with CNN, said the killing was an act of state terrorism and Iran will respond proportionately.
“This is state terrorism,” Zarif said. “This is an act of aggression against Iran, and it amounts to an armed attack against Iran, and we will respond. But we will respond proportionately - not disproportionately ... We are not lawless like President Trump.”
Trump said on Saturday the United States was ready to strike 52 Iranian sites, including some important to Iranian culture, if Iran attacked US assets or Americans.
Meanwhile, Iranian lawmakers yesterday voted to designate all US forces around the world “terrorists” over Soleimani’s killing. Parliament also agreed to bolster the coffers of the Quds Force, which Soleimani led, by $244 million (200 million euros).
The assassination of the 62-year-old Soleimani heightened international concern about a new war in the volatile Middle East.
Iraq’s parliament has demanded the government expel the 5,200 American troops stationed in the country in response to the drone attack which also killed top Iraqi military figure Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis.
Baghdad requested in a letter to the UN -- seen by AFP -- that the Security Council condemn the US strike so that “the law of the jungle” is not allowed to prevail.
On Sunday night, the US mistakenly notified Baghdad of an imminent troop pullout in a letter that sparked confusion in Washington.
In the letter, US Brigadier General William Seely said the US-led coalition would “be repositioning forces”. But Pentagon Joint Chiefs Chairman Mark Milley said the letter was a mere “draft” that was sent by mistake.
Meanwhile, Iran’s foreign minister said he has been informed by UN chief Antonio Guterres that Washington has denied him a visa for a planned trip to UN headquarters in New York.
Iran, whose coastline runs along a Gulf oil shipping route that includes the narrow Strait of Hormuz, has allied forces across the Middle East through which it can act.
It also rattled politicians in US, specially Democrats, who have called the killing unnecessary.
US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced a plan to introduce and vote on a resolution “to limit the president’s military actions regarding Iran,” in a letter to colleagues late Sunday.
The European Union, whose foreign ministers will hold emergency talks on the crisis Friday, said it was in both Iran and Iraq’s interests to “take the path of sobriety and not the path of escalation”.
Saudi Arabia -- an oil-rich US ally seen as vulnerable to Iranian counter strikes -- also appealed for calm after a “very dangerous” escalation.
Despite its strident rhetoric, analysts say Iran will want to avoid any conventional conflict with the United States and will likely focus on asymmetric strikes, such as sabotage or other military action via proxies.
Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi yesterday said Iran’s nuclear deal with world powers “is not dead yet” despite Tehran’s decision to abandon limits on enriching uranium required by the pact.
“We are ready to come back to full compliance with the deal depending on the ending of sanctions and gaining from the economic benefits of the deal,” Araqchi.
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