2020 Democrats condemn Soleimani before attacking Trump for ordering the airstrike

Several Democrats vying for the White House in 2020 condemned Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani before taking aim at President Trump for ordering the deadly airstrike that will escalate tensions in the region and was done so without Congress’ approval.
Former Vice President Joe Biden claimed that by ordering the airstrike Trump “just tossed a stick of dynamite into a tinderbox.”
In a lengthy statement, Biden said Trump “owes the American people an explanation of the strategy and plan to keep our troops and embassy personnel, our people and our interests, both here at home and abroad, and our partners throughout the region and beyond.
“No American will mourn Qassem Soleimani’s passing. He deserved to be brought to justice for his crimes against American troops and thousands of innocents throughout the region. He supported terror and sowed chaos,” the statement read.
“None of that negates the fact that this is a hugely escalatory move in an already dangerous region. The Administration’s statement says that its goal is to deter future attack by Iran, but this action almost certainly will have the opposite effect.”
Biden also questioned whether the Trump administration considered the “second- and third-order consequences” of Soleimani’s death that now puts the U.S. “on the brink of a major conflict across the Middle East.”
“I fear this administration has not demonstrated at any turn the discipline or long-term vision necessary --- and the stakes could not be higher,” he said.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and Sen. Bernie Sanders, an independent from Vermont, both echoed Biden’s sentiments – and mentioned the financial consequences of a renewed conflict in the Middle East.
The Wall Street Journal reported that the price of oil surged late Thursday after the Pentagon announced Trump had ordered the airstrike that killed the leader of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ foreign wing.
“When I voted against the war in Iraq in 2002, I feared it would lead to greater destabilization of the region. That fear unfortunately turned out to be true,” Sanders said. “The U.S. has lost approximately 4,500 brave troops, tens of thousands have been wounded, and we’ve spent trillions.”
“Trump's dangerous escalation brings us closer to another disastrous war in the Middle East that could cost countless lives and trillions more dollars,” he continues in a second tweet. “Trump promised to end endless wars, but this action puts us on the path to another one.
Two combat veterans running for president --- Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, D-Hawaii, and South Bend, Ind., Mayor Peter Buttigieg – did not immediately issue statements in response to Soleimani’s death as of early Friday morning. Gabbard voluntarily deployed to serve with a field medical unit in Iraq. Buttigieg deployed to Afghanistan for seven months in 2014.
Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., also weighed in on Twitter, calling on the Trump administration to consult with Congress in regards to its strategy moving forward.
“Qassem Soleimani was responsible for directing Iran’s destabilizing action in Iraq, Syria, and throughout the Middle East, including attacks against U.S. forces. But the timing, manner, and potential consequences of the Administration’s actions raise serious questions and concerns about an escalating conflict,” her statement said.
“Our immediate focus needs to be on ensuring all necessary security measures are taken to protect U.S. military and diplomatic personnel in Iraq and throughout the region. The Administration needs to fully consult with Congress on its decision-making, response plans, and strategy for preventing a wider conflict.”
Speaking to MSNBC, Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., said, “We have a president who had a failure in his Iranian policy, who has no larger strategic plan and who has made that region less stable and less safe.”
Long-shot Democratic presidential candidate Marianne Williamson took aim at federal laws dating back to 1961 which she says fail to cap spending by the U.S. Department of Defense, and thus allow Trump’s “recklessness” in the Middle East. In a series of tweets, the author, activist and faith leader slammed Congress for passing the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).

Ilhan Omar vows to stop Trump

Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., called on members of Congress late Thursday to join her in putting a stop to President Trump from starting a war as a "distraction" in Iran following the U.S. airstrike that killed the notorious Gen. Qassim Soleimani.
“So what if Trump wants war, knows this leads to war and needs the distraction?” the Democrat freshman "Squad" member said. “Real question is, will those with congressional authority step in and stop him? I know I will.”
The Pentagon confirmed earlier Thursday evening that Trump had ordered the attack that killed Soleimani, the head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps' elite Quds Force, among other military officials at Baghdad International Airport in Iraq. Iran’s top “shadow commander” was responsible for the deaths of hundreds of American and coalition service members and the wounding of thousands more, the State Department said.
Omar responded to a tweet from Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., who questioned whether Trump acted within his right as Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces to authorize the attack. The U.S. Constitution divides war powers between the Executive and Legislative branches. Congress can declare war and raise support for the armed forces.
“Soleimani was an enemy of the United States. That’s not a question,” Murphy affirmed. “The question is this - as reports suggest, did America just assassinate, without any congressional authorization, the second most powerful person in Iran, knowingly setting off a potential massive regional war?”
Murphy, a member of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, said that while the justification for the attack is to “deter future Iranian attacks,” the U.S. usually doesn’t assassinate foreign officials because it could potentially cause more Americans to be killed.
“That should be our real, pressing and grave worry tonight,” he said.
He added that while no one knows what will happen next, “the neocons thumping their chest tonight should recall that the worst mistakes global powers make are when they strike militarily in complicated places with few friends, with no consideration of the consequences.”
Many Democrats admitted that no Americans would mourn Soleimani's death but also raised concern that the escalation will put the U.S. on a crash course for a new conflict in the Mideast. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi released a statement saying that Trump ordered the airstrike “without the consultation of Congress.”
The State Department said the airstrike “was aimed at deterring future Iranian attack plans."
"The United States will continue to take all necessary action to protect our people and our interests wherever they are around the world," the agency said.
Soleimani is suspected of directing a mob of hundreds of Iranian-backed militants to storm the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad this week, triggering a two-day faceoff with American forces at the most heavily fortified U.S. diplomatic mission in the world. On Tuesday, Trump vowed retaliation against the militia groups. He tweeted an American flag Thursday evening after Soleimani’s death was confirmed.
In April 2019, the State Department announced that Iranian and Iranian-backed forces led by Soleimani were responsible for killing 608 U.S. troops during the Iraq War.
Soleimani took over the external operations wing of the IRGC in 1998 and was known as one of the most powerful military leaders in the Middle East. The State Department believes he was the masterminded behind the major military operations, bombings and assassinations that accounted for at least 17 percent of all U.S. personnel deaths in Iraq between 2003 and 2011.
Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Friday warned that a "harsh retaliation is waiting" for the U.S. after the airstrike that killed Soleimani.
Fox News’ Vandana Rambaran and Brie Stimson contributed to this report.

Sean Hannity: US forces, State Department, Trump 'on high alert' after Iranian general Soleimani's death

Fox News' Sean Hannity called his own TV program Thursday to discuss the significance of the U.S. airstrike that killed Iranian Gen. Qassim Soleimani, the head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps' elite Quds Force, and other military officials at Baghdad International Airport.
"This was [a response to] Iranian aggression against us. This was Iranian strategy, Iranian money, Iranian proxies that put American lives in jeopardy and the president very quickly acted," Hannity told guest host Jason Chaffetz. "I've been able to confirm tonight ... our military, our State Department, our president, everybody is on high alert. Every option is, I was told, 'on the table' and that American interests in Iraq and the region will be protected."
U.S. EMBASSY IN BAGHDAD FIRE DAMAGE SEEN IN NEW PHOTOS FOLLOWING MILITANTS' ATTACK
Soleimani is the military mastermind whom Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had deemed equally as dangerous as ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who killed himself in October during a U.S. raid on a compound in northwest Syria.
"Taking out this top general is ... right up there, in my view, with taking out Baghdadi in terms of the importance of stopping Iranian aggression inside of Iraq," said Hannity, who went on to praise the president and all those involved in the airstrike.
"I will say the big headline is this is a huge victory for American intelligence, a huge victory for our military. A huge victory for the State Department and a huge victory and total leadership by the president," Hannity said. "It is the opposite of what happened in Benghazi."
The nighttime attack occurred two days after Iran-backed militia members attacked the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad in response to recent U.S. airstrikes.
The two-day siege came to an end Wednesday afternoon after dozens of the militiamen and their supporters withdrew from the compound.

Iran vows 'harsh retaliation' after US airstrike kills Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani

Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Friday warned that a "harsh retaliation is waiting" for the U.S. after an airstrike on an airport in Baghdad killed Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani, the head of Iran's elite Quds Force.
The Iranian state TV carried a statement by Khamenei who also called Soleimani "the international face of resistance." Khamenei declared three days of public mourning for the general's death.
TRUMP ORDERS ATTACK THAT KILLS IRANIAN GEN. QASSIM SOLEIMANI, OTHER MILITARY OFFICIALS IN BAGHDAD, PENTAGON SAYS
The Iranian foreign minister warned that the U.S. would bear all the consequences of the “foolish” military attack, claiming Soleimani's assassination would only escalate tensions in the region given that he was “THE most effective force” fighting terrorism carried out by the Islamic State.
Javad Zarif, the foreign minister of Islamic Republic of Iran, said on Twitter that “The US' act of international terrorism, targeting & assassinating General Soleimani—THE most effective force fighting Daesh (ISIS), Al Nusrah, Al Qaeda et al—is extremely dangerous & a foolish escalation.”
“The US bears responsibility for all consequences of its rogue adventurism,” he said.
Zarif references three affiliated Sunni Muslim extremist groups who’ve held territory in Iraq and Syria. The modern Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) has ties that date back to the rise of al Qaeda in 2004 after the U.S. invaded Iraq the year before.
The Pentagon confirmed that President Trump ordered the early Friday-morning attack that killed Soleimani, the head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps' elite Quds Force, among other military officials at Baghdad International Airport. The airstrike hit in Iraq.
Many Democrats admitted that no Americans would mourn Soleimani's death but also raised concern that the escalation will put the U.S. on a crash course for a new conflict in the Mideast. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi released a statement saying that Trump ordered the airstrike “without the consultation of Congress.”
“American leaders’ highest priority is to protect American lives and interests,” her statement said. “But we cannot put the lives of American service members, diplomats and others further at risk by engaging in provocative and disproportionate actions. Tonight’s airstrike risks provoking further dangerous escalation of violence.”
An adviser to Iran's President Hassan Rouhani also quickly warned Trump of retaliation from Tehran.
"Trump through his gamble has dragged the U.S. into the most dangerous situation in the region," Hessameddin Ashena wrote on the social media app Telegram. "Whoever put his foot beyond the red line should be ready to face its consequences."
Soleimani is the military mastermind whom Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had deemed equally as dangerous as Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. In October, Baghdadi killed himself during a U.S. raid on a compound in northwest Syria, seven months after the so-called ISIS "caliphate" crumbled as the terrorist group lost its final swath of Syrian territory in March.
The overnight attack occurred amid tensions with the U.S. after an Iran-backed militia attacked the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, which was targeted Tuesday by angry mobs who were protesting recent U.S. airstrikes. The two-day siege outside of the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad came to an end Wednesday afternoon after dozens of pro-Iran militiamen and their supporters withdrew from the compound.
Soleimani was the long-running leader of the elite intelligence wing called Quds Force – which itself has been a designated terror group since 2007, and is estimated to be 20,000 strong. Considered one of the most powerful men in Iran, he routinely was referred to as its "shadow commander" or "spymaster."
In April 2019, the State Department announced Iran was responsible for killing 608 U.S. troops during the Iraq War. Soleimani was the head of the Iranian and Iranian-backed forces carrying out those operations killing American troops. According to the State Department, 17 percent of all deaths of U.S. personnel in Iraq from 2003 to 2011 were orchestrated by Soleimani.
As recently as 2015, a travel ban and United Nations Security Council resolutions had barred Soleimani from leaving Iran.
Friday's Baghdad strike also killed Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the deputy commander of Iran-backed militias known as the Popular Mobilization Forces, a source told Fox News. In all, at least seven people were killed and at least three rockets were fired, officials told The Associated Press. An official with the Popular Mobilization Forces said its airport protocol officer, Mohammed Reda, also died.
Fox News’ Frank Miles, Lucas Tomlinson, John Roberts, Mike Arroyo and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

AOC Cartoons

Year-end violence highlights danger of worshipping

NEW YORK (AP) — When a machete-wielding attacker walked into a rabbi’s home in Monsey, New York, during Hanukkah and a gunman fired on worshippers at a Texas church 14 hours later, the two congregations in different regions of the country joined a growing list of faith communities that have come under attack in the U.S.

It is a group that crosses denominations and geography and has companions around the world. The frequency of attacks has faith leaders and law enforcement grappling with how to protect people when they are at their most vulnerable.

FBI hate crime statistics show that incidents in churches, synagogues, temples and mosques increased 34.8% between 2014 and 2018, the last year for which FBI data is available.

“For a person bent on hate crime against a particular religion or race, you go to a place where you know a lot of people in that group will be congregating — and vulnerable,” said James Alan Fox, a criminologist at Boston’s Northeastern University. “One place you can go to find people of a certain religion is where they worship.” Most congregations, he said, do not have security.

Three of the deadliest attacks on congregation members have occurred since June 2015, when a gunman killed nine people at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina, according to a database compiled by The Associated Press, USA TODAY and Northeastern University. The database includes attacks where four or more victims are killed.

However, the database wouldn’t include the most recent attacks that have refocused attention on the security vulnerabilities at religious institutions.

The FBI’s hate crime highlights list a number of crimes, including a Colorado plot to blow up a synagogue, an Oregon man sentenced to federal prison for targeting a Catholic Church and two guilty pleas in the bombing of an Islamic Center in Minnesota where congregants were worshipping in the mosque.

A five-year compilation of AP reports showed the frequency of attacks countrywide.

Recent stories included the stabbing of an Orthodox Jewish man as he approached the driveway of his synagogue in Monsey in November, as well as a Las Vegas incident where a suspect torched a Buddhist temple, then shot toward at least one monk fleeing the fire.

The data is definitive enough that the FBI invited faith leaders to its Washington, D.C., headquarters last June to discuss how to protect themselves and their congregants from bias-based attacks.

Mark Whitlock Jr., pastor of Reid Temple AME Church in Glenn Dale, Maryland, said his own staff and volunteers have met five times in the last month to discuss safety.

“Our first responsibility is to make sure our congregants have faith in God and second, that they are safe,” Whitlock said. “We must not create an environment of fear but we also must not fail to recognize things do happen and evil is present.”

Reid has a paid security staff of about 20 who wear uniforms and are armed. There are volunteers as well, made up of former and current federal agents, law enforcement officers and military who also provide security, Whitlock said.

Even with the protection, he is watchful. On Sunday, he was in the pulpit and saw the security force reacting to something. They explained later it was a stranger they wanted to identify.

“When you’re looking at thousands of people and you see your security force walking around, your mind begins to wonder,” he said.

The new spate of anti-Semitic attacks has added to the sense of urgency that’s been felt by Jewish security experts since the 2018 massacre at Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life synagogue, where 11 people were killed.

“The greatest adversary we truly face is not an external threat, it’s a sense of denial,” said Michael Masters, national director of the Secure Community Network. It was formed by leading Jewish organizations in 2004 to coordinate a response to security threats.

“The conversation prior to Pittsburgh was whether safety and security was necessary,” Masters said. “Now it’s a question of how do we effectuate that — there’s now a reality that these events can happen anywhere.”

Sunday’s attack in White Settlement, Texas, in which the gunman was shot dead by a highly trained leader of the church’s security team, came barely two years after more than two dozen people were killed at a church in Sutherland Springs, Texas. That remains the deadliest shooting at a house of worship in the U.S. in modern times.

The two Texas attacks have heightened worries among churchgoers in neighboring Oklahoma, said the Rev. Derrek Belase, a former police officer turned pastor who coordinates security training for the more than 480 United Methodist churches in Oklahoma.

“Texas is close to home for us,” Belase said. “People see it on the news and think, ‘That could be us.’”

Under Oklahoma law, houses of worship are among the places where adults are allowed to carry firearms, whether concealed or openly. Churches may ask worshippers not to bring guns with them, but Belase says that’s not a common request.

When Belase is advising churches on security, his core recommendations are to work in tandem with local law enforcement, be wary of for-profit security consultants, and be sure that members of any church security team are thoroughly trained.

The security team leader in White Settlement “wasn’t just a guy with a gun,” Belase said. “He was trained to do that.”

Pardeep Singh Kaleka, executive director of the Interfaith Conference of Greater Milwaukee, said his own Sikh temple has armed guards and an evacuation plan, the result of a 2012 attack in Oak Creek, Wisconsin, that killed six worshippers, including his father. He said the conference members talk regularly about how to prevent the next tragedy. “All faiths want to remain open, Buddhists, Sikhs, Muslims, Jews, Christians, but you also have to be vigilant and institute safety protocols.”

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Associated Press researcher Rhonda Shafner in New York contributed to this report.

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Associated Press religion coverage receives support from the Lilly Endowment through the Religion News Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

Anti-Semitism grows in Jewish communities in NYC suburbs

MONSEY, N.Y. (AP) — F or years, ultra-Orthodox Jewish families pushed out of increasingly expensive Brooklyn neighborhoods have been turning to the suburbs, where they have taken advantage of open space and cheaper housing to establish modern-day versions of the European shtetls where their ancestors lived for centuries before the Holocaust.

The expansion of Hasidic communities in New York’s Hudson Valley, the Catskills and northern New Jersey has led to predictable sparring over new housing development and local political control. It has also led to flare-ups of rhetoric seen by some as anti-Semitic.

Now, a pair of violent attacks on such communities, just weeks apart, worry many that intolerance is boiling over.

On Dec. 10, a man and woman killed a police officer and then stormed into a kosher grocery in Jersey City, fatally shooting three people inside before dying in an hourslong gunfight with police. The slayings happened in a neighborhood where Hasidic families had recently been relocating, amid pushback from some local officials who complained about representatives of the community going door to door, offering to buy homes at Brooklyn prices.

And on Saturday, a man rushed into a rabbi’s home in Monsey, New York, during a Hanukkah celebration, hacking at people with a machete. Five people were wounded, including one who remained hospitalized Tuesday. Federal prosecutors said the man charged in the attack, Grafton Thomas, had handwritten journals containing anti-Semitic comments and a swastika and had researched Hitler’s hatred of Jews online.

At a meeting Monday hosted by U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand in Rockland County, where Monsey is, some Jewish leaders blamed inflammatory rhetoric on social media and from local elected officials for the rising threat of anti-Semitic violence.

Days after the killings in Jersey City, a local school board member there, Joan Terrell-Paige, assailed Jews as “brutes” on Facebook, saying she believed the killers were trying to send a message with the slaughter. “Are we brave enough to explore the answer to their message?” she asked.

A widely condemned political ad last summer created by a local Republican group claimed that an Orthodox Jewish county legislator was “plotting a takeover” that threatens “our way of life.”

“In the last few years in Rockland County I have seen a rise in hate rhetoric, and I was able to foresee it would end in violence,” said Aron Wieder, the legislator targeted in the video ad. “You have seen on social media where the Orthodox community has been called a cancer, leeches, people who don’t pay taxes. It has become normal and accepted to say derogatory and hateful things about Jewish people.”

Swastikas have been scrawled around the county, and frightened parents are asking law enforcement for more visible security at synagogues and schools, Wieder said.

Bigoted messages have gone unchecked for years, said Rabbi Yisroel Kahan, administrative director of the Oizrim Jewish Council. He pointed to hateful comments on social media and false online rumors that have spilled over into everyday life.

“It has been tolerated for far too long,” he said.

Hasidic families began migrating from New York City to suburban communities in the 1970s, hoping to create the sort of cohesive community some recalled from Europe.

Rockland County, 15 miles (24 kilometers) northwest of Manhattan, now has the largest Jewish population per capita of any U.S. county, with 31%, or 90,000 residents, being Jewish. The ultra-Orthodox population is highly visible in small towns like Monsey, where bearded Hasidic men in black overcoats and fedoras converse in Yiddish along the sidewalks and Orthodox women wear modest black skirts and head scarves as they go about their daily errands.

In small towns everywhere, resentment against newcomers and “outsiders” isn’t uncommon. Proposals for multi-family housing complexes in sleepy communities of single-family homes often trigger fervent opposition complete with lawn signs and rowdy town board meeting crowds.

Yet the tone of the debates over growth in some areas where Hasidic families have been moving has been more intense.

In East Ramapo, there were legal fights after Hasidic voters, who generally do not send their children to public schools, elected a majority of members of the local school board.

Some towns have enacted zoning changes forbidding new houses of worship.

In the small town of Chester, 60 miles north of New York City in Orange County, New York Attorney General Letitia James recently announced action to fight housing rules that she said were being used to improperly prevent an influx of Hasidic Jews. Local officials have denied anti-Semitism was behind opposition to plans to build over 400 homes in the town of 12,000 residents.

Rockland County Executive Ed Day said the arguments over housing density involve legitimate policy issues and are the biggest challenge when it comes to accommodating he growing Orthodox Jewish community.

The Orthodox community has special needs, he said, like housing for large families and residences within walking distance to a synagogue. That creates “demands that are counter to many of the communities they’re residing in,” Day said.

Questionable zoning decisions, he said, lead to resentment.

“Now the words start. Now the worst words continue. And this is where you have the problem,” Day said.

Whether any of that heated rhetoric was a factor in the recent violence is unclear.

Authorities haven’t offered an explanation yet for what they think motivated the Jersey City attackers or Thomas to select their targets.

Thomas’ lawyer and family have said he has struggled for years with mental illness and hadn’t previously shown any animosity to Jews. He had grown up in New York City but was living with his mother in a small town about a 30 minute drive from Monsey.

Rabbi David Niederman, executive director of the Brooklyn-based United Jewish Organizations of Williamsburg, said he is offended by references to tensions over housing and population growth in discussions about the Monsey and the Jersey City attacks.

“If you have tensions, what you do is you sit down at a table; that’s how you deal with tensions,” Niederman said. “You don’t go out and murder people. You don’t go out with a butcher knife and almost kill a whole congregation.”

Those violent attacks, he said, were motivated by “pure hatred.”

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Esch reported from Albany and Carolyn Thompson in Buffalo contributed to this report.

Militiamen withdraw from US Embassy but Iraq tensions linger

BAGHDAD (AP) — Iran-backed militiamen withdrew from the U.S. Embassy compound in Baghdad on Wednesday after two days of clashes with American security forces, but U.S.-Iran tensions remain high and could spill over into further violence.

The withdrawal followed calls from the government and senior militia leaders. It ended a two-day crisis marked by the breach of the largest and one of the most heavily fortified U.S. diplomatic missions in the world.

The attack and its volatile aftermath prompted the Pentagon to send hundreds of additional troops to the Middle East an d U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to delay a European and Central Asian trip.

In an orchestrated assault, hundreds of militiamen and their supporters broke into the embassy compound, destroying a reception area, smashing windows and spraying graffiti on walls to protest U.S. airstrikes against an Iran-backed militia over the weekend that killed 25 fighters.

The U.S. blamed the militia for a rocket attack on an Iraqi military base in the northern city of Kirkuk last week that killed a U.S. contractor.

The protesters set up a tent camp overnight and on Wednesday set fire to the reception area and hurled stones at U.S. Marines guarding the compound, who responded with tear gas. There were no injuries on either side and no American staff were evacuated from the compound.

The Popular Mobilization Forces, an umbrella group of state-allied militias — many backed by Iran — called on its supporters to withdraw in response to an appeal by the Iraqi government, saying “your message has been received.”

By late afternoon the tents had been taken down and the protesters relocated to the opposite side of the Tigris River, outside the so-called Green Zone housing government offices and foreign embassies. U.S. Apache helicopters circled overhead.

“After achieving the intended aim, we pulled out from this place triumphantly,” said Fadhil al-Gezzi, a militia supporter. “We rubbed America’s nose in the dirt.” Trump has vowed to exact a “big price” for an attack he blamed squarely on Iran.

Kataeb Hezbollah, the Iran-backed militia targeted by the U.S. airstrikes, initially refused to leave but later bowed to demands to disperse. The militia is separate from the Hezbollah militant group in Lebanon, though both are backed by Iran.

“We don’t care about these planes that are flying over the heads of the picketers. Neither do we care about the news that America will bring Marines,” said Mohammed Mohy, a spokesman for Kataeb Hezbollah. “On the contrary, this shows a psychological defeat and a big mental breakdown that the American administration is suffering from,” he said, before withdrawing from the area.

The violence came as Iran and its allies across the region have faced unprecedented mass protests in recent months and heavy U.S. sanctions have cratered Iran’s economy.

Iraq has been gripped by anti-government protests since October fueled by anger at widespread corruption and economic mismanagement, as well as Iran’s heavy influence over the country’s affairs. Those protesters were not involved in the embassy attack.

The Pentagon sent an infantry battalion of about 750 soldiers to the Middle East. A U.S. official familiar with the decision said they would go to Kuwait. Pompeo postponed a trip that was scheduled to start in Ukraine late Thursday so that he can monitor developments in Iraq and “ensure the safety and security of Americans in the Middle East,” said State Department spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus.

Iran denied involvement in the attack on the embassy. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was quoted by media as saying that “if the Islamic Republic makes a decision to confront any country, it will do it directly.”

Iran later summoned the Swiss charge d’affaires, who represents American interests in Tehran, to protest what it said was war-mongering by U.S. officials.

Public consular operations at the embassy were suspended and future appointments cancelled, it said in a statement.

Tensions have steadily risen since Trump withdrew the U.S. from Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal with world powers and embarked on a campaign of maximum pressure through economic sanctions. Iran has responded by abandoning some of its commitments under the deal.

U.S. officials have blamed Iran for the sabotage of oil tankers in the Persian Gulf and a drone attack on Saudi oil facilities in September that caused a spike in world oil prices. But the Trump administration has not responded with direct military action, apparently fearing a wider conflict.

The U.S. has sent more than 14,000 additional troops to the Gulf region since May in response to concerns about Iranian aggression. At the time of the attack, the U.S. had about 5,200 troops in Iraq, mainly to train Iraqi forces and help them combat Islamic State extremists.

The U.S. and Iran have vied for influence over Iraq since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein. Iran has close ties to Iraq’s Shiite majority and major political factions, and its influence has steadily grown since then.

Iran helped to mobilize tens of thousands of mostly Shiite militiamen to battle the Islamic State group when it stormed across northern and western Iraq in 2014 as the armed forces collapsed. The U.S. and Iran both provided vital aid to Iraqi forces, who eventually declared victory over the extremists in December 2017.

The political influence of the Popular Mobilization Forces has risen in recent years, and their allies dominate the parliament and the government. That has made them the target of the anti-government protesters, who have attacked Iranian diplomatic missions and the local headquarters of parties affiliated with the militias across southern Iraq.

They have also set up a sprawling protest camp in central Baghdad, and for weeks have been trying to enter the Green Zone. Iraqi security forces have beaten them back with tear gas and live ammunition, killing hundreds.

The militiamen and their supporters, however, were able to quickly enter the Green Zone and mass in front of the embassy, with little if any resistance from authorities.

Iraq’s government vehemently condemned the airstrikes on the militia, saying it violated national sovereignty. But Iran and its allies might have also seen the attack as a way of diverting attention from the anti-government protests.

“Iran has been trying to provoke the U.S. into helping it solve its Iraq problem,” said the Crisis Group, an international think tank. “The Trump administration, by responding to the attacks in Kirkuk and elsewhere with airstrikes, has obliged.”

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Krauss reported from Ramallah, West Bank. Associated Press writers Amir Vahdat in Tehran, Iran, Bassem Mroue in Beirut and Robert Burns in Washington contributed.