Region

WASHINGTON — Demonstrators chanting "no war on Iran" rallied Saturday in Washington, New York and across the US to protest the assassination of a top Iranian military commander in a US drone strike.

Outside the White House, around 200 people gathered as part of a wave of rallies called by left-leaning organisations. They chanted slogans including "No Justice, No Peace, US out of the Middle East".

Organisers said demonstrations were convened in some 70 US cities to denounce the killing of Major General Qassem Soleimani early Friday in Baghdad on orders from President Donald Trump. The attack has prompted fears of a major conflagration in the Middle East.

"We will not allow our country to be led into another reckless war," one speaker outside the White House said.

The protesters later headed towards the Trump International Hotel, which is just down the street from the presidential mansion.

"Need a distraction? Start of a war," read a sign held by Sam Crook, 66.

Trump faces a looming trial in the Senate following his impeachment by the House of Representatives in the Ukraine scandal.

Crook described himself as concerned.

“This country is in the grip of somebody who’s mentally unstable, I mean Donald Trump, that is. He’s not right in the head,” Crook told AFP.

“He’s crazy, and has a childish reaction to everything. And I’m afraid he’s going to inadvertently — he doesn’t really want to, I think — but I think he could easily start some sort of a real conflagration in the Middle East,” Crook added.

Shirin, a 31-year-old Iranian-American who would not give her last name, said she was worried about the possibility of war with Iran, which has vowed revenge for the death of Soleimani.

“We already spent trillions of dollars fighting unjust wars in Iraq and, you know, the longest war today in Afghanistan. And what do we have to show for it?” she said.

She argued that the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq caused instability throughout the region and strengthened Iran, “which is now, you know, a major political, social and cultural force in Iraq”.

At Times Square in New York, demonstrators marched with signs crying out against the prospect of war with Iran and calling for the withdrawal of the 5,000-odd US troops in Iraq.

DIWANIYAH, Iraq — Iraqi protesters flooded the streets on Sunday to denounce both Iran and the US as "occupiers", angry that fears of war between the rivals was derailing their anti-government movement.

For three months, youth-dominated rallies in the capital and Shiite-majority south have condemned Iraq's ruling class as corrupt, inept and beholden to Iran.

Following a US strike on Baghdad on Friday that killed top Iranian and Iraqi commanders, Iraqi lawmakers urged the government on Sunday to oust thousands of US troops deployed across the country.

For protesters who were hitting the streets, Iran was also a target for blame.

"No to Iran, no to America!" chanted hundreds of young Iraqis as they marched through the southern protest hotspot of Diwaniyah.

Young children present carried posters in the shape of Iraq and waved their country's tri-colour.

"We're taking a stance against the two occupiers: Iran and the US," one demonstrator told AFP.

Nearby, a teenage girl held a handwritten sign reading: "Peace be on the land created to live in peace, but which has yet to see a single peaceful day".

Iraqi helicopters circled above, surveying the scene.

Relations between Tehran and Washington have been deteriorating since the US abandoned a landmark nuclear deal with Iran in 2018 and reimposed crippling economic sanctions.

But tensions boiled over during the last week, culminating in a US drone strike outside Baghdad International Airport that killed Iranian general Qasem Soleimani and several Iraqi paramilitary leaders.

'Don't ignore our demands'

Some protesters initially rejoiced, having blamed Soleimani for propping up the government they have been trying to bring down since early October.

But joy swifty turned to worry, as protesters realised pounding war drums would drown out their calls for peaceful reform of Iraq's government.

In a bold move, young protesters in the southern city of Nasiriyah blocked a mourning procession for Soleimani and top Iraqi paramilitary chief Abu Mahdi Al Muhandis from reaching their protest camp.

Outraged pro-Iran mourners fired on the protesters, wounding three, medical sources told AFP.

"We refuse a proxy war on Iraqi territory and the creation of crisis after crisis," said student Raad Ismail.

"We're warning them: Don't ignore our demands, whatever the excuse," he said.

Later in the day, the offices of the Hashed Al Shaabi paramilitary group of mostly-Shiite factions was set on fire in Nasiriyah, an AFP correspondent said.

And in the southern port city of Basra, protesters hurled rocks at a mourning procession for Soleimani, prompting his supporters to respond in kind.

Tehran has especially strong ties to the Hashed, which has been incorporated into the state.

The US has accused one vehemently anti-American Hashed faction, Kataeb Hizbollah, of attacking US diplomats and troops in Iraq.

The demonstrators are calling for early parliamentary voting based on a new electoral law. They hope this would bring transparent and independent lawmakers to parliament.

They have also demanded Iran — their large eastern neighbour, which holds sway among Iraqi politicians and military figures — reduce its interventions in Iraq.

No sovereignty, no state?

On Saturday, Kataeb Hizbollah told Iraqi security forces to "get away" from US troops, sparking fears they would fire rockets at bases shared by soldiers from both countries.

Just moments before, explosions rocked the enclave in the Iraqi capital where the US embassy is located and an airbase north of the capital housing American troops.

In the shrine city of Karbala, student Ahmad Jawad denounced Soleimani's killing and the ensuing violence.

"We refuse that Iraq becomes a battlefield for the US and Iran, because the victims of this conflict will be Iraqis," he told AFP.

Another student, Ali Hussein, was worried about the precarious situation.

Iraq's Premier Adel Abdel Mahdi resigned last month over the protests, but political factions have not agreed on a replacement and are now focused on the aftermath of the US strike.

"The Americans violated Iraq's sovereignty by hitting the Hashed bases and carrying out another strike by the Baghdad airport," said Hussein.

For demonstrators whose main rallying cry had been "we want a country", Hussein said the foreign military operations were jarring.

TRIPOLI — At least 30 people were killed in an air strike on a military school in Libya's capital, a spokesman for the health ministry said on Sunday citing a new toll.

Thirty three others were wounded in Saturday's air raid on the military school of Tripoli, Amin Al Hashemi, spokesman for the health ministry of the UN-recognised Government of National Accord (GNA) said.

The military school is in Al Hadba Al Khadra, a residential area in south Tripoli.

Surveillance camera footage shared online showed the cadets gathered on a parade ground as the strike occurred.

At the time of the strike the cadets were gathered on a parade ground before going to their dormitories, Hashemi said.

Southern Tripoli has seen fierce fighting since last April, when eastern-based military strongman Khalifa Haftar began an offensive against the GNA.

GNA forces shared photos of the victims and wounded on Facebook, accusing pro-Haftar forces of conducting the strike.

But a spokesman for Haftar's forces, Ahmad Al Mismari, "categorically" denied that the strongman's Libyan National Army (LNA) was behind the attack.

Mismari told a news conference on Sunday that fighters from Al Qaeda, the Daesh group and the Muslim Brotherhood were responsible for what he described as a "terrorist act".

The UN mission in Libya, UNSMIL, denounced the attack and warned that military escalations hinder efforts aimed at relaunching a political process in Libya.

The North African country was plunged into chaos with the toppling and killing of dictator Muammar Qadhafi in a 2011 NATO-backed uprising. It has since become divided between the GNA and rival authorities based in the country's east.

More than 280 civilians and more than 2,000 fighters have been killed since the start of Haftar's assault on Tripoli, according to the United Nations. The fighting has also displaced some 146,000 people.

BEIRUT — Regime air strikes on Sunday killed five civilians in the embattled opposition stronghold of Idlib in northwest Syria, a Britain-based war monitor said.

Militants-run Idlib has come under mounting bombardment in recent weeks, forcing tens of thousands to flee their homes in the region of some 3 million people.

"Regime air raids killed five civilians in the town of Ariha," said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which relies on sources inside the war-torn country.

The Damascus government has repeatedly vowed to take back control of Idlib, which is run by Hayat Tahrir Al Sham, a group dominated by Syria's former Al Qaeda affiliate.

A ceasefire announced in late August was supposed to stem Russia-backed regime bombardment of the region after it killed around 1,000 civilians in four months.

But the observatory says sporadic bombardment and clashes continued, before intensifying in the past month.

On January 1, missiles fired by regime forces killed nine civilians including five children in a school turned shelter in the town of Sarmeen.

Syria's war has killed more than 380,000 people including over 115,000 civilians since it started in 2011 with the brutal repression of anti-government protests.

In total 11,215 people including more than 1,000 children were killed last year, although it was the least deadly year on record since the beginning of the conflict.

BEIRUT — Almost nine years of civil war in Syria has left more than 380,000 people dead including over 115,000 civilians, a war monitor said in a new toll on Saturday.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which has a network of sources across the country, said they included around 22,000 children and more than 13,000 women.

The conflict has displaced or sent into exile around 13 million Syrians, causing billions of dollars-worth of destruction.

The Britain-based observatory's last casualty toll on the Syrian conflict, issued in March last year, stood at more than 370,000 dead.

The latest toll included more than 128,000 Syrian and non-Syrian fighters.

More than half of those were Syrian soldiers, while 1,682 were from the Lebanon's Hizbollah whose members have been fighting in Syria since 2013.

The war has also taken the lives of more than 69,000 opposition, Islamist, and Kurdish-led fighters.

It has killed more than 67,000 extremists, mainly from the Daesh terror group and Hayat Tahrir Al Sham (HTS), a group dominated by Syria’s former Al Qaeda affiliate.

An escalation in violence in Idlib province in recent weeks has caused 284,000 people to flee their homes, according to the United Nations.

In the northeast, Turkish troops and their proxies control a strip of land along the border after seizing it from Kurdish fighters earlier this year.

Kurdish-led forces control the far east Syria, where US troops have been deployed near major oil fields.

Syria’s conflict is estimated to have set its economy back three decades, destroying infrastructure and paralysing the production of electricity and oil.

UN Security Council members held an intensive round of meetings on Friday on the humanitarian crisis in Syria’s embattled Idlib province amid calls to reauthorize urgently needed cross-border aid.

Humanitarian aid currently flows into northwestern Syria —  a last rebel stronghold —  through UN-designated checkpoints in Turkey and Iraq without Damascus’s formal permission.

But that arrangement is set to expire on January 10, and with only a week to find a solution, diplomats said on Friday they had no progress to report so far.

Several also said there had not yet been any discussion of how this week’s killing by the US of top Iranian commander Qasem Soleimani might affect matters in Syria, where Shiite forces under his sway play an outsized role.

In a first closed-door meeting on Friday, requested by Britain and France, Security Council delegates were briefed by the under- secretaries general for political and humanitarian affairs, respectively Rosemary DiCarlo and Mark Lowcock.

The council issued no statement afterward.

Two other closed-door sessions were held on the aid question.

The first brought together the council’s five permanent members — the US, Britain, France, Russia and China.

The second involved the 10 non-permanent members, all of whom support a continuation of cross-border aid even without Damascus’s permission, one diplomat said.

When the council took up the matter on December 20, Russia and China vetoed a resolution that would have authorised continued aid deliveries for a year through four border points — two with Turkey, one with Jordan and one with Iraq.

Three million people in the Idlib region benefit from the aid, according to the UN.

Damascus maintains that only 800,000 people in Idlib are in need of aid.

Russia, a key supporter of the Syrian government, has said it would support only a six-month extension, involving only two passage points on the Turkish-Syrian border.

An earlier Russian draft proposal to that effect won only nine of the 15 Security Council votes needed for approval.

Syria’s UN ambassador, Bashar Jaafari, told reporters on Friday that there was “no longer any justification for cross-border delivery of
humanitarian aid”.

He added that all aid must pass through Damascus.

Referring to Idlib, he said, “The Syrian government is determined not to give up its rights and duty as a sovereign state to eliminate the last stronghold of terrorism.”

BENGHAZI — Libyan deputies voted on Saturday for a break in diplomatic relations with Turkey over its controversial agreements with the UN-recognised government that is contested inside the North African country.

At an emergency meeting in the eastern city of Benghazi, parliament also urged the international community to withdraw recognition of the Government of National Accord (GNA) which MPs accused of "high treason" because of the maritime and military deals it signed with Ankara in November clearing the way for a Turkish military intervention on its side.

Parliament speaker Abdallah Bleheq said MPs voted “unanimously” to scrap the accords, which they likened to “a return of colonialism”, and to sever ties with Ankara.

The parliament, which was elected in 2014 and took refuge in eastern Libya, has been weakened by divisions within its ranks and the departure of around 40 members to Tripoli, the GNA-controlled capital.

Saturday’s meeting fell short of the required quorum, according to pro-GNA media, but there was no independent verification of the number of MPs who took part.

The parliament is allied with military strongman Khalifa Haftar, who is at war with the GNA that is headed by Fayez Al Sarraj.

Meanwhile, Libya’s military strongman Khalifa Haftar has called on all Libyans to take up arms in response to a prospective military intervention from Turkey aimed at shoring up the UN-backed government in Tripoli.

The beleaguered Tripoli government, headed by Fayez Al Sarraj, has been under sustained attack since April by Haftar, who said in a televised address on Friday, “We accept the challenge and declare jihad and a call to arms.”

He urged “all Libyans” to bear arms, “men and women, soldiers and civilians, to defend our land and our honour”.

He said it was no longer a question of liberating Tripoli from the militias, but of “facing a coloniser”, accusing Ankara of wanting to “regain control of Libya”, a former province of the Ottoman Empire.

PARIS  — Iran has vowed "severe revenge" against the United States for killing top commander Qasem Soleimani and will likely use its experience of asymmetric warfare to strike back at its arch foe.

All options however carry the risk of rapid escalation and Iran's clerical leadership will want to carefully weigh the dangers to a regime that has been in place since the ousting of the pro-American shah in 1979.

"We can't predict what direction Iran will choose to go in. But what we do know is that Iran acts in a calculated manner and takes very deliberate steps," said Ariane Tabatabai, associate political scientist at the Rand Corporation, a policy think tank in California.

"I expect they will take the time they need to get the response right," she told AFP.

Iran learned the merits of asymmetric warfare — fighting a power with greater military might than your own — in the deadly 1980-1988 war against Iraq. Its strong influence in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and beyond means it has possible levers against the US presence in the region.

Here are the main options Iran might consider to avenge the death of a man who was commander of the Quds Force of the Revolutionary Guard and masterminded its operations across the Middle East.

Proxies sow trouble 

Throughout the region, Iran backs forces with the potential to cause havoc, from Houthi rebels in Yemen and Shiite militias in Iraq to Hizbollah in Lebanon.

Iraq is set to be the key battleground. Pro-Iranian Shiite militias could work to drive US forces out of Iraq and also destabilise the Iraqi government to create a new domestic political crisis.

"I suspect there will be a lot of pressure on the US military presence now in Iraq," said Alex Vatanka of the Washington-based Middle East Institute, adding a pullout would be a "major strategic loss for the United States in the Middle East”.

Hizbollah could also stir up trouble in Lebanon, already in political and financial turmoil, while a new blow could be dealt to hopes of peace in Yemen.

"Whatever specific actions Tehran undertakes, it is likely that conflict with the United States is going to expand throughout the region," the Soufan Centre in New York said in a statement.

Cyberattack 

A more subtle step would be for Iran to launch a cyberattack.

Analysts believe Tehran has stepped up its capacity to attack key Western cyber infrastructure and has even built up a so-called "cyber army" that pledges allegiance to the Islamic Republic.

Loic Guezo, head of French information security group Clusif, said Iran's cyberattacks above all sought to hurt industrial targets such as dams or power stations.

"What is feared here is the impact on society — electricity cuts, poisoning, gas leaks, explosions, transport chaos and hospitals," he told AFP.

Oil blockade 

Oil prices initially soared more than 4 per cent on fears that the killing could lead to disruption of oil supplies from the Middle East. A major fear is that Iran could block shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, one of the world's most congested transit points.

Its Western foes have accused Iran of being behind a major attack on Saudi oil installations and Iran has in recent months also repeatedly seized tankers operating in the Gulf.

"Iran has shown that it can hit ships and block ships," said Jean Charles Brisard, head of the Centre for Analysis of Terrorism in France. "But is a blockade conceivable?" he asked.

Military strike 

The most apocalyptic scenario would be a military strike by Iran using its ballistic missile arsenal against US, Israeli or Saudi interests in the region, a move that would risk prompting an all-out regional conflict.

But analysts say other options are far more likely.

"The basic assumption still is that both the US and Iran want the other to back down rather than direct war," said Heiko Wimmen, project director of the International Crisis Group for Iraq, Syria and Lebanon.

"We can't know whether the Iranians will decide that a drastic escalation and retaliation is the best tactic, or whether they go for a measured, perhaps even non-violent response," he told AFP.

Vatanka said the Iranian leadership was "opportunistic" not "suicidal", adding: "If there's an opportunity that they can take advantage of, they will."

By Didier Lauras and Stuart Williams