Social and Political

Al-Arabia – The leader of Lebanon’s Hezbollah group called Friday for the death in a US strike of top Iranian commander Major General Qasem Soleimani to be avenged. “Meting out the appropriate punishment to these criminal assassins… will be the responsibility and task of all resistance fighters worldwide,” Hassan Nasrallah said in a statement. “We who stayed by his side …

RFL/RE – A senior U.S. Democrat says lawmakers were not informed in advance of the U.S. attack that killed a top Iranian military commander who was traveling in Iraq.Republican legislators meanwhile appeared to rally around the move, welcoming the assassination of Iran’s elite Quds Force commander Qasem Soleimani as a blow for the defense of Americans and U.S. territory.Eliot Engel …

VOA – The U.S. airstrike that killed a prominent Iranian general in Baghdad raises tensions even higher between Tehran and Washington, after months of trading attacks and threats across the wider Middle East.  How Iran will respond remains in question as well, though its supreme leader warned that a “harsh retaliation is waiting” for those who killed Revolutionary Guard Maj. …

VOA – Last year, U.S. President Donald Trump labeled Iran’s elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) a foreign terrorist organization, an unprecedented move that marked the first time the United States had formally named another country’s military terrorists. Experts said then that the decision would likely raise to a higher level the strained relationship between the two countries. Here is …

VOA – Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, a veteran Iraqi militant who was closely allied with Iran and rose to be a senior militia commander during the war against the Islamic State group, was killed Friday in a U.S. strike that also felled Iran’s top general. Al-Muhandis was the deputy commander of the Popular Mobilization Forces, an umbrella group of mostly Shiite …

VOA – The United States struck a significant and potentially risky blow against Iran, killing the leader of the nation’s elite Quds Force in an airstrike in Iraq. The Pentagon confirmed the death of Quds Force Commander General Qassem Soleimani in a statement late Thursday, saying the strike was launched, “at the direction” of U.S. President Donald Trump. It further …

gatestoneinstitute.org – The President’s robust response to the recent upsurge in Iranian-sponsored violence in Iraq and elsewhere in the Middle East certainly appears at odds with the perception that he has no interest in conducting military operations in the Middle East, and that his main objective is to reduce Washington’s military presence in the region ahead of this year’s presidential …

Al-Monitor – Iranian officials have reiterated comments by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei that they will not start the war but will fight back against an invasion. REUTERS/Omar SanadikiIranian Vice President Eshag Jahanghiri leaves the plane upon his arrival at Damascus international airport in Damascus, Syria, Jan. 28, 2019. After the United States struck a number of Iraqi bases of an Iran-backed …

Radiofarda – The U.S. Special Representative for Iran on January 2 told the BBC Radio 4’s Today Program that in “an act of desperation” Iran organized the demonstration in front of the U.S. embassy in Baghdad this week. “The Iranian regime organized these protesters, I think, in an act of desperation to try to drive a wedge between the United …

Radiofarda – Israeli leaders consider U.S strikes on Iran-backed Iraqi militia as a “potential turning point” in the campaign against Tehran which they had claimed earlier they were fighting “alone”. Speaking at a conference hosted by the Calcalist financial newspaper Israeli Air Force chief Major General Amikam Norkin said the current situation in the region due to the threats posed …