RALLY MARKS 1 YEAR SINCE GENERAL KILLED
Chanting anti-American slogans, thousands of Iraqis converged on a landmark square in central Baghdad on Sunday to commemorate the anniversary of the killing of a powerful Iranian general and a top Iraqi militia leader in a U.S. drone strike.
Roads leading to Tahrir Square were closed off and security was tight as the crowds gathered in response to a call by powerful Iranbacked militias for a rally marking the occasion and demanding the expulsion of U.S. troops from Iraq.
“No, no to America!” shouted some in the largely maskless crowd. “You killed our guest. There is no place here for your embassy,” read some of the banners.
Protesters at one point set fire to a large U.S. flag, drawing cheers from the crowd.
The killing of Gen. Qassim Soleimani and Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis at Baghdad’s airport pushed Tehran and Washington perilously close to all-out conf lict and sparked outrage in Iraq, leading parliament to pass a nonbinding resolution days later calling for the expulsion of all foreign troops from Iraq.
Sunday’s rally was being held amid heightened tensions between Iran and the U.S. in the final days of President Donald Trump’s administration.
Already, America has conducted B-52 bomber f lyovers and sent a nuclear submarine into the Persian Gulf over what Trump officials describe as the possibility of an Iranian attack on the anniversary of the strike that killed Soleimani and alMuhandis.
Carrying Iraqi and militia f lags and posters of the two men, thousands of Iraqis marched toward Tahrir
Square for the rally Sunday, demanding the withdrawal of U.S. troops in implementation of the parliamentary resolution.
Soleimani headed the elite Quds Force of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, responsible for the Islamic Republic’s foreign operations. Al-Muhandis was Iraq’s most powerful militia leader and deputy commander of the PMF.