Iranians demonstrate in support of slain military commander
By: Erin Cunningham - Washington Post - Jan. 3, 2020 at 9:25 a.m. CST
Re:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world...120_story.html
ISTANBUL — Tens of thousands of Iranians demonstrated Friday in the capital, Tehran, and other cities in support of a senior Revolutionary Guard Corps commander killed in a U.S. drone strike in Iraq, even as many privately expressed worry about the escalating conflict with the United States.
Maj. Gen. Qasem Soleimani, the commander of the Revolutionary Guard’s elite Quds Force and Iran’s most powerful military leader, was targeted by U.S. aircraft early Friday as he traveled in a two-car convoy with senior Iraqi militia leaders near the Baghdad airport.
U.S. officials had accused Soleimani of orchestrating a series of rocket attacks on U.S. bases in Iraq, including a strike last month that killed a U.S. contractor and wounded several American troops.
Iranian officials, including Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, vowed Friday to avenge the killing, calling it a “grave miscalculation” and a “heinous crime.”
The targeted killing of Soleimani has “caused great grief and sorrow” and has “doubled the resolve of the great Iranian nation . . . to stand up against the United States,” President Hassan Rouhani said.
“This cowardly and vicious act is another sign of the United States’ frustration and helplessness in the region,” he said. “Iran will take revenge for this heinous crime.”
In Kerman in southeastern Iran, where Soleimani was born, a massive procession of black-clad mourners filled the streets and chanted religious slogans, according to footage broadcast on Iranian news channels.
In Tehran, demonstrators called on the Quds Force to take revenge.
“Soleimani’s blood spilled, the nation’s outrage against the enemy sparked!” the protesters chanted in a video broadcast by the state-run Islamic Republic News Agency.
A senior Shiite cleric, Ahmad Khatami, said the commander’s death was “a cause for Muslims to be more united than ever.”
A Revolutionary Guard spokesman, Ramadan Sharif, said the force would be “starting a new chapter” following the deadly U.S. strike.
As he spoke to a reporter from Iranian state television, Sharif broke down in tears.
“The momentary happiness experienced by the Americans will soon turn into mourning,” he said.
But across Iran, residents expressed worry over the potential fallout from the strike, which threatened to plunge Tehran and the United States in a full-blown conflict. Tensions between the two nations have soared since President Trump withdrew from a 2015 nuclear deal that Iran struck with world powers, an agreement that curbed Tehran’s atomic energy activities in exchange for sanctions relief.
“My family is concerned and sad. Soleimani had many fans in Iran, not only among the supporters of the Islamic Republic,” said Maryam, 35, a resident of Tehran. Like other Iranians contacted Friday, she declined to give her full name so she could speak freely about the death of a senior military commander.
“There were people who were attracted to his charisma and considered him to be more clean than other Iranian officials,” she said. “There are rallies in different cities now . . . and I think that there will be more.”
In a statement Friday, Khamenei announced the appointment of Brig. Gen. Esmail Ghani as the new Quds Force commander, saying that the organization’s strategy will remain the same. The Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control sanctioned Ghani in 2012 for what it said was his role in distributing weapons and funds to Iranian allies in the region.
Soleimani, 62, oversaw the proliferation of allied proxy forces across the Middle East, including in Iraq, Lebanon, Syria and Yemen. He was often seen on the battlefield in both Iraq and Syria as he directed Iranian-backed Shiite militias in their fight against the Islamic State, and his military success against the Sunni militants made him widely popular inside Iran.
“Everyone is worried. The people I spoke with weren’t sad but shocked,” said Nazli, 40, from the northern city of Rasht.
“On social media, some people I thought didn’t support the regime are now expressing sorrow for his death,” she said.
The Iranian Embassy in Iraq said Friday that Soleimani’s body would be carried in a procession to the two holy Shiite cities of Karbala and Najaf in Iraq before returning to Iran, according to the semiofficial Tasnim News Agency.
“There are three groups of people in Iran now: those who are happy, those who are worried about security and the economy . . . and those who are sad,” said Davoud, a resident of the city of Mashhad.
He said some residents are scrambling to buy U.S. dollars and gold to stave off further economic repercussions. Iran’s economy has been battered by a near-total U.S. embargo that has targeted everything from oil exports to banking transactions and the Iranian aviation and automotive sectors.
In November, protests gripped Iranian cities following a government decision to reduce fuel subsidies for consumers. Authorities cracked down hard on demonstrators, killing at least 200 people, according to rights group Amnesty International.
Davoud said that before the unrest, Iranians likely would have turned out in much larger numbers to support the government in the event of a U.S. strike.
“But now, they don’t have the support of the people to be able to mobilize them,” he said of Iran’s leaders.
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About this writer: Erin Cunningham is an Istanbul-based correspondent for The Washington Post, covering conflict and political turmoil across the Middle East. She previously was a correspondent at the paper's bureau in Cairo, and has reported on wars in Afghanistan, Gaza, Libya and Iraq
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Personal note: It's ain't over yet - its far from being resolved. They just re-lit another candle and someone else will step up and use this assassination as a tool to stir up the hatred of the United States throughout the Muslim states. And to all those sympathetic to their cause. One goes down another steps up. Plenty of bad guys so the games still afoot! It won't end pretty.
Note: Lock & Load and Be Safe our Prayer's are with you all.
Boats