The Times of Israel is liveblogging Sunday’s events as they happen.
Israeli analyst: Iran plans campaign of attacks on US forces in Middle East
A top Israeli analyst, Channel 12’s Ehud Ya’ari, says the Iranian strategy in responding to the US killing of Qassem Soleimani is becoming clear: guerilla attacks on US forces throughout the Middle East to make America’s presence in the region untenable.
A key signal of the new strategy was Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah’s speech in Beirut earlier today, in which he called for the “axis of resistance” to attack US military assets throughout the region.
Iraq parliament votes to expel US military
Iraq’s parliament has voted to expel the US military from the country.
Lawmakers vote in favor of a resolution that calls for ending foreign military presence in the country. The resolution’s main aim is to get the US to withdraw some 5,000 US troops present in different parts of Iraq.
The vote comes two days after a US airstrike killed Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani inside Iraq, dramatically increasing regional tensions.
The Iraqi resolution specifically calls for ending an agreement in which Washington sent troops to Iraq more than four years ago to help in the fight against the Islamic State group.
The resolution was backed by most Shiite members of parliament, who hold a majority of seats.
Many Sunni and Kurdish legislators did not show up for the session, apparently because they oppose abolishing the deal.
Pompeo: From now on we target Iranian decision-makers, not proxies
WASHINGTON — US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo says the Trump administration has abandoned the previous US administration’s focus on countering Iranian proxy groups like Hezbollah and suggests the US strike in Baghdad that killed Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani was an example of the new strategy.
“We’re going to respond against the actual decision-makers, the people who are causing this threat from the Islamic Republic of Iran,” Pompeo says.
He also says any target the US military may strike in Iran, in the event Iran retaliates against America for killing its most powerful general, would be legal under the laws of armed conflict.
Pompeo was asked on ABC’s “This Week” about President Donald Trump’s assertion Saturday on Twitter that the United States has 52 Iranian targets in its sights, “some at a very high level & important to Iran & the Iranian culture.”
The laws of armed conflict prohibit the deliberate targeting of cultural sites under most circumstances. The American Red Cross notes on its website that the Geneva Conventions of 1949 and their additional protocols, ratified by scores of nations in recent years, states that “cultural objects and places of worship” may not be attacked and outlaws “indiscriminate attacks on civilian populations.”
Targeting cultural sites is a war crime under the 1954 Hague Convention for the protection of cultural sites. The UN Security Council also passed unanimously a resolution in 2017 condemning the destruction of heritage sites. Attacks by the Islamic State group and other armed factions in Syria and Iraq prompted that vote.
“Every target that we strike will be a lawful target, and it will be a target designed with a singular mission — defending and protecting America,” Pompeo says.
On short notice, US fast-response force flies to Mideast
Being a US soldier in a fast-response force sometimes means being sent halfway across the world within a day, leaving no time to say goodbye to those staying behind.
Lt. Col. Mike Burns, a spokesman for the 82nd Airborne Division, told The Associated Press 3,500 members of the division’s quick-deployment brigade, known officially as its Immediate Response Force, will have deployed within a few days. The most recent group of service members to deploy will join about 700 who left earlier in the week, Burns said.
A loading ramp at Fort Bragg was filled Saturday morning with combat gear and restless soldiers. Some tried to grab a last-minute nap on wooden benches. Reporters saw others filing onto buses.
The additional troop deployments reflect concerns about potential Iranian retaliatory action in the volatile aftermath of Friday’s drone strike that killed Gen. Qassem Soleimani, the head of Iran’s elite Quds Force who has been blamed for attacks on US troops and American allies going back decades.
Nasrallah: US military will leave ‘humiliated’ – and take Israel with it
Hassan Nasrallah promises that if Shiite militias attack US military assets in the Middle East, the Americans will eventually leave the region “humiliated, defeated, and terrified” — and will take Israel with them.
“We won’t accept our region, its holy places, and natural resources to be handed over to the Zionists,” the Hezbollah chief says in a video speech from Beirut about the American killing of Qassem Soleimani.
He calls on Shiite forces, the “axis of resistance,” to attack the US military.
“If the resistance axis heads in this direction, the Americans will leave our region, humiliated, defeated, and terrified. The suicide martyrs who forced the US out of the region before remain,” he says, according to a live translation by David Daoud.
“If our region’s peoples head in this direction — when the coffins of US soldiers and officers – they arrived vertically, and will return horizontally — Trump and his administration will know they lost the region, and will lose the [2020] elections,” he promises.
And then he turns to Israel. “[The] response to the blood of Soleimani and Al-Muhandis must be the expulsion of all US forces from the region. When we accomplish this goal, the liberation of Palestine will become imminent. When US forces leave the region, these Zionists will pack their bags and leave, and [we] might not need a battle with Israel.
Nasrallah calls on Shiite militias to attack US military
Nasrallah, in a seemingly endless speech, is finally getting to the point, and the point is dramatic: He calls for Shiite forces allied to Iran to attack US military assets.
Iran “won’t ask you to do anything – to act or not to act. But [the] Resistance Axis forces must decide how to deal with Soleimani’s death. So, if any Resistance Axis faction avenges his death, that [is] their decision, and Iran isn’t behind that,” says Nasrallah, according to one translator, David Daoud.
“It’s up to us how to respond. Do we content ourselves with mourning and eulogizing? We must all head towards just punishment. What do we mean by just punishment? Some are saying this must be someone of the same level as Qassem Soleimani – like Chairman of Joint Chiefs, head of @CENTCOM, but there is no one on Soleimani or Muhandis’ level. Soleimani’s shoe is worth more than Trump’s head, so there’s no one I can point to to say this is the person we can target.”
Nasrallah: Soleimani killing launches ‘new era in the region’
Hezbollah head Hassan Nasrallah says Qassem Soleimani’s killing begins “a new phase” in the region.
Friday marks a “date separating two phases in the region … it is the start of a new phase and a new history not just for Iran or Iraq but the whole region,” he says in a speech broadcast from Beirut.
He insists his side can’t lose, because it sees death as another kind of victory.
“We do not get defeated… Even when we get martyred we triumph.”
Trump also “doesn’t respect international law,” Nasrallah avers.
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