Crowds in Baghdad will remember the death of a general from Iran who was killed in 2020.
Marchers want to get rid of the rest of the US troops in Iraq as they remember the death of General Qassem Soleimani.
It’s been two years since the U.S. killed an Iranian commander and his Iraqi lieutenant in the sky with a drone. Thousands of people in Iraq’s capital have been protesting.
They marched through a square in Baghdad to honour General Qassem Soleimani, who led Iran’s Quds Force, the foreign operations arm of the elite Revolutionary Guard, until he died on January 3, 2020. They sang “Death to America.”
The pro-Iranian Hashed, also known as the Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF), held a rally in support of their cause. One sign read, “US terrorism must end.” The PMF, which used to be a paramilitary group, is now part of Iraq’s state security.
Another sign said, “We will not let you stay in the land of the martyrs after today.” Many people were trampling on the flags of the United States and Israel that were spread out on the ground.
This rally is a chance for the protesters to keep up their calls for the full withdrawal of US and other foreign troops from Iraq, says Mahmoud Abdelwahed, a reporter for Al Jazeera.
Dozens of protesters, many of them members of Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Forces, were chanting against the United States and the presence of US troops in Iraq, he said.
General Qassem Soleimani and Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis were killed by U.S. forces two years ago, and the investigation into their deaths hasn’t been clear or transparent for the last two years.
Iran-backed Shia groups sent supporters from different parts of Iraq to a rally in Jadriyah, which is close to powerful armed groups.
The attack that killed Soleimani and Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the Iraqi lieutenant of Hashed, was ordered by former US President Trump. Soleimani and al-Muhandis were both killed in the attack.
When Trump made this statement, he said it was because there had been a lot of attacks on US interests in Iraq.
When Soleimani and al-Muhandis were killed, it sent shock waves through the Middle East and sparked fears of a direct military confrontation between long-time enemies Washington and Tehran, who have been at odds for years, ever since they were teenagers.
A fewew days after that, the parliament of Iraq passed a non-binding resolution that called for the withdrawal of all foreign troops from the country.
Iran, which has a lot of power in Iraq, said it would retaliate for the death of Soleimani.
Iran fired missiles at an air base in Iraq where US troops were stationed and another near the city of Erbil in the north five days after the killing. This is what happened.
In the last few years, a lot of rockets and roadside bombs have been fired at Western security, military, and diplomatic sites in Iraq.
Hardline pro-Iran groups are to blame for the attacks, which have never been claimed by any group. Iraqi and Western officials say these groups are to blame.
In February of last year, the US bombed Kataeb Hezbollah, an Iranian-backed Iraqi paramilitary group that was stationed near the Iraqi-Syrian border. This came after rockets were fired at the US embassy in Baghdad and a US military contracting firm north of the capital.
US troops who are in Iraq as part of a coalition fighting ISIL (ISIS) have been called on to leave by Hashed.
Faleh al-Fayyad, a senior Hashed official, said Saturday that the killing of Soleimani and al-Muhandis was “a crime against Iraqi sovereignty.”
ISIL’s “combat mission” in Iraq came to an end in December, and Iraq said so. However, about 2,500 American soldiers and 1,000 coalition troops will stay in Iraq to help train and advise Iraqi forces.
He said, “We will not accept anything less than full withdrawal as payback for the blood of our martyrs.”
