Thousands mourn Soleimani in Iran as Trump threatens strikes

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Thousands of mourners accompanied a casket carrying the remains of the slain Gen. Qassem Soleimani through two major Iranian cities Sunday as part of a grand funeral procession across the Islamic Republic amid soaring tensions between Iran and the U.S.

President Donald Trump has threatened to bomb 52 sites in Iran if it retaliates by attacking Americans. The U.S. Embassy in Saudi Arabia separately warned Americans “of the heightened risk of missile and drone attacks.” Meanwhile, Iran vowed to take an even-greater step away from its unraveling nuclear deal with world powers as a response to Soleimani’s slaying.

The U.S. drone strike killing Soleimani in Iraq Friday escalated the crisis between Tehran and Washington after months of trading attacks and threats that put the wider Middle East on edge. The conflict is rooted in Trump pulling out of Iran’s atomic accord.

Iran has promised “harsh revenge” for the U.S. attack, which shocked Iranians across all political lines. Many saw Soleimani as a pillar of the Islamic Republic at a moment when it is beset by U.S. sanctions and recent anti-government protests.

Retaliation for Soleimani could potentially come through the proxy forces which he oversaw as the head of an elite unit within the paramilitary Revolutionary Guard. Soleimani’s longtime deputy Esmail Ghaani already has taken over as the Quds Force’s commander.

Late Saturday, a series of rockets launched in Baghdad fell inside or near the Green Zone, which houses government offices and foreign embassies, including the U.S. Embassy.

Trump wrote on Twitter afterward that the U.S. had already “targeted 52 Iranian sites (representing the 52 American hostages taken by Iran many years ago), some at a very high level & important to Iran & the Iranian culture.”

Trump did not identify the targets but added that they would be “HIT VERY FAST AND VERY HARD.”

The 1954 Hague Convention, of which the U.S. is a party, bars any military from “direct hostilities against cultural property.” However, such sites can be targeted if they have been re-purposed and turned into a legitimate “military objective,” according to the International Committee of the Red Cross.

Iran, home to 24 UNESCO World Heritage sites, has in the past reportedly guarded the sprawling tomb complex of the Islamic Republic’s founder, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, with surface-to-air missiles.

After thousands in Baghdad on Saturday mourned Soleimani and others killed in the strike, authorities flew the general’s body to the southwestern Iranian city of Ahvaz. An honor guard stood by early Sunday as mourners carried the flag-draped coffins of Soleimani and other Guard members off the tarmac.

The caskets then moved slowly through streets choked with mourners wearing black, beating their chests and carrying posters with Soleimani’s portrait. Demonstrators also carried red Shiite flags, which traditionally both symbolize the spilled blood of someone unjustly killed and call for their deaths to avenged.

Officials brought Soleimani’s body to Ahvaz, a city that was a focus of fighting during the bloody, 1980-88 war between Iraq and Iran in which the general slowly grew to prominence. After that war, Soleimani joined the Guard’s newly formed Quds, or Jersualem, Force, an expeditionary force that works with Iranian proxy forces in countries like Iraq, Lebanon and Yemen.

Authorities then took Soleimani’s body to Mashhad later Sunday. His remains will go to Tehran and Qom on Monday for public mourning processions, followed by his hometown of Kerman for burial Tuesday.

This marks the first time Iran honored a single man with a multi-city ceremony. Not even Khomeini received such a processional with his death in 1989. Soleimani on Monday will lie in state at Tehran’s famed Musalla mosque as the revolutionary leader did before him.

Soleimani was the architect of Iran’s regional policy of mobilizing militias across Iraq, Syria and Lebanon, including in the war against the Islamic State group. He was also blamed for attacks on U.S. troops and American allies going back decades.

Though it’s unclear how or when Iran may respond, any retaliation was likely to come after three days of mourning declared in both Iran and Iraq.

Iranian officials planned to meet Sunday night to discuss taking a fifth step away from its 2015 nuclear deal with world powers, one that could be even greater than planned, Foreign Ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi told journalists.

“In the world of politics, all developments are interconnected,” Mousavi said.

Iran previously has broken limits of its enrichment, its stockpiles and its centrifuges, as well as restarted enrichment at an underground facility.

After the airstrike early Friday, the U.S.-led coalition has scaled back operations and boosted “security and defensive measures” at bases hosting coalition forces in Iraq, a coalition official said on condition of anonymity according to regulations.

Meanwhile, the U.S. has dispatched another 3,000 troops to neighboring Kuwait, the latest in a series of deployments in recent months as the standoff with Iran has worsened. Protesters held demonstrations in dozens of U.S. cities Saturday over Trump’s decisions to kill Soleimani and deploy more troops to the Mideast.

In a thinly veiled threat, one of the Iran-backed militias, Asaib Ahl al-Haq, or League of the Righteous, called on Iraqi security forces to stay at least a kilometer (0.6 miles) away from U.S. bases starting Sunday night. However, U.S. troops are invariably based in Iraqi military posts alongside local forces.

The Iranian parliament on Sunday opened with lawmakers in unison chanting: “Death to America!” Parliament speaker Ali Larijani compared Soleimani’s killing to the 1953 CIA-backed coup that cemented the shah’s power and to the U.S. Navy’s shootdown of an Iranian passenger plane in 1988 that killed 290 people. He also described American officials as following “the law of the jungle.”

“Mr. Trump! This is the voice of Iranian nation. Listen!” Larijani said as lawmakers chanted.

A spokesman for Iran’s armed forces, Gen. Abolfazl Shekarchi, likewise threatened the U.S. by saying Iran and the “resistance front will decide the time, place and way” revenge will be carried out.

Iraq’s parliament is meeting for an emergency session Sunday. Its government has come under mounting pressure to expel the 5,200 American troops who are based in the country to help prevent a resurgence of the Islamic State group.

The U.S. has ordered all citizens to leave Iraq and temporarily closed its embassy in Baghdad, where Iran-backed militiamen and their supporters staged two days of violent protests in which they breached the compound. Britain and France have warned their citizens to avoid or strictly limit travel in Iraq, as London said it would begin escorting ships through the Strait of Hormuz. Oman, long an interlocutor between Iran and the West, urged Tehran and Washington on Sunday to pursue dialogue.

No one was hurt in the embassy protests, which came in response to U.S. airstrikes that killed 25 Iran-backed militiamen in Iraq and Syria. The U.S. blamed the militia for a rocket attack that killed a U.S. contractor in northern Iraq.

___

Gambrell reported from Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Associated Press writers Aya Batrawy in Dubai, Qassim Abdul-Zahra in Baghdad, Zeina Karam and Sarah El Deeb in Beirut and Kelvin Chan in London contributed to this report.

Trump warns Iran: US has targeted '52 Iranian sites' and will 'hit very fast and very hard' if needed

President Trump issued a stern warning to Iran on Saturday through a series of Twitter messages intended to deter the country from retaliating after the U.S.-ordered airstrike that killed Iran's Gen. Qassem Soleimani last week.
"Iran is talking very boldly about targeting certain USA assets as revenge for our ridding the world of their terrorist leader who had just killed an American, & badly wounded many others, not to mention all of the people he had killed over his lifetime, including recently hundreds of Iranian protesters," Trump tweeted.
The president continued: "He was already attacking our Embassy, and preparing for additional hits in other locations. Iran has been nothing but problems for many years."
Soleimani, head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps' elite Quds Force, was killed in an airstrike Friday in Baghdad that was ordered by President Trump.
"Let this serve as a WARNING that if Iran strikes any Americans, or American assets, we have targeted 52 Iranian sites (representing the 52 American hostages taken by Iran many years ago), some at a very high level & important to Iran & the Iranian culture, and those targets, and Iran itself, WILL BE HIT VERY FAST AND VERY HARD," Trump wrote Saturday, explicitly laying out that the U.S. will act if Iran retaliates.
Following Soleimani's death, Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said "harsh retaliation is waiting for the criminals whose filthy hands spilled his blood."
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani promised to "take revenge for this heinous crime."
The Iran-backed militias that spawned in Iraq, known as the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), have been quick to threaten revenge on U.S. personnel and interests. Killed alongside Soleimani at the airport in Baghdad was his close confidante Abu Mahdi al-Mohandas, the deputy head of the PMF.
Trump has made it clear that he expects the Iranians to stop threatening the United States.
"The USA wants no more threats!" Trump had tweeted.
Fox News' Danielle Wallace and Hollie McKay contributed to this report.

Obama's Pallets of Money to Iran Cartoons

Obama $1.7-billion payment to Iran was all in cash due to effectiveness of sanctions

By Associated Press

Sep. 7, 2016

6:30 AM

Reporting from Washington —  The Obama administration is acknowledging its transfer of $1.7 billion to Iran earlier this year was made entirely in cash, using non-U.S. currency, as Republican critics of the transaction continued to denounce the payments.
Treasury Department spokeswoman Dawn Selak said in a statement late Tuesday that the cash payments were necessary because of the “effectiveness of U.S. and international sanctions,” which isolated Iran from the international finance system.
The $1.7 billion was the settlement of a decades-old arbitration claim between the U.S. and Iran. An initial $400 million of euros, Swiss francs and other foreign currency was delivered on pallets Jan. 17, the same day Tehran agreed to release four American prisoners.
The Obama administration had claimed the events were separate, but recently acknowledged the cash was used as leverage until the Americans were allowed to leave Iran. The remaining $1.3 billion represented estimated interest on the Iranian cash the U.S. had held since the 1970s. The administration had previously declined to say if the interest was delivered to Iran in physical cash, as with the principal, or via a more regular banking mechanism.
Earlier Tuesday, officials from the State, Justice and Treasury departments held a closed-door briefing for congressional staff on the payments, according to a Capitol Hill aide familiar with the session. The officials said the $1.3 billion was paid in cash on Jan. 22 and Feb. 5. The aide was not authorized to speak publicly and requested anonymity.
The money came from a little-known fund administered by the Treasury Department for settling litigation claims. The so-called Judgment Fund is taxpayer money Congress has permanently approved in the event it’s needed, allowing the president to bypass direct congressional approval to make a settlement. The U.S. previously paid out $278 million in Iran-related claims by using the fund in 1991.
Republicans have decried the payments as ransom, a charge the Obama administration has rejected. On Tuesday, a group of Republican senators announced their support for legislation that would bar payments from the Judgment Fund to Iran until Tehran pays the nearly $55.6 billion that U.S. courts have judged that it owes to American victims of Iranian terrorism.
“President Obama’s disastrous nuclear deal with Iran was sweetened with an illicit ransom payment and billions of dollars for the world’s foremost state sponsor of terrorism,” said Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), the bill’s primary sponsor.
Rep. Ed Royce (R-Fullerton), chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, also introduced a bill that prohibits cash payments to Iran and demands transparency on future settlements.
“Sending the world’s leading state sponsor of terror pallets of untraceable cash isn’t just terrible policy,” Royce said. “It’s incredibly reckless, and it only puts bigger targets on the backs of Americans. ... This cash bonanza has emboldened Iran’s radical regime, and undermined America’s national security.”

Trump Administration Accomplishments

• Almost 4 million jobs created since election.
• More Americans are now employed than ever recorded before in our history.
• We have created more than 400,000 manufacturing jobs since my election.
• Manufacturing jobs growing at the fastest rate in more than THREE DECADES.
• Economic growth last quarter hit 4.2 percent.
• New unemployment claims recently hit a 49-year low.
• Median household income has hit highest level ever recorded.
• African-American unemployment has recently achieved the lowest rate ever recorded.
• Hispanic-American unemployment is at the lowest rate ever recorded.
• Asian-American unemployment recently achieved the lowest rate ever recorded.
• Women’s unemployment recently reached the lowest rate in 65 years.
• Youth unemployment has recently hit the lowest rate in nearly half a century.
• Lowest unemployment rate ever recorded for Americans without a high school diploma.
• Under my Administration, veterans’ unemployment recently reached its lowest rate in nearly 20 years.
• Almost 3.9 million Americans have been lifted off food stamps since the election.
• The Pledge to America’s Workers has resulted in employers committing to train more than 4 million Americans. We are committed to VOCATIONAL education.
• 95 percent of U.S. manufacturers are optimistic about the future—the highest ever.
• Retail sales surged last month, up another 6 percent over last year.
• Signed the biggest package of tax cuts and reforms in history. After tax cuts, over $300 billion poured back in to the U.S. in the first quarter alone.
• As a result of our tax bill, small businesses will have the lowest top marginal tax rate in more than 80 years.
• Helped win U.S. bid for the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles.
• Helped win U.S.-Mexico-Canada’s united bid for 2026 World Cup.
• Opened ANWR and approved Keystone XL and Dakota Access Pipelines.
• Record number of regulations eliminated.
• Enacted regulatory relief for community banks and credit unions.
• Obamacare individual mandate penalty GONE.
• My Administration is providing more affordable healthcare options for Americans through association health plans and short-term duration plans.
• Last month, the FDA approved more affordable generic drugs than ever before in history. And thanks to our efforts, many drug companies are freezing or reversing planned price increases.
• We reformed the Medicare program to stop hospitals from overcharging low-income seniors on their drugs—saving seniors hundreds of millions of dollars this year alone.
• Signed Right-To-Try legislation.
• Secured $6 billion in NEW funding to fight the opioid epidemic.
• We have reduced high-dose opioid prescriptions by 16 percent during my first year in office.
• Signed VA Choice Act and VA Accountability Act, expanded VA telehealth services, walk-in-clinics, and same-day urgent primary and mental health care.
• Increased our coal exports by 60 percent; U.S. oil production recently reached all-time high.
• United States is a net natural gas exporter for the first time since 1957.
• Withdrew the United States from the job-killing Paris Climate Accord.
• Cancelled the illegal, anti-coal, so-called Clean Power Plan.
• Secured record $700 billion in military funding; $716 billion next year.
• NATO allies are spending $69 billion more on defense since 2016.
• Process has begun to make the Space Force the 6th branch of the Armed Forces.
• Confirmed more circuit court judges than any other new administration.
• Confirmed Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch and nominated Judge Brett Kavanaugh.
• Withdrew from the horrible, one-sided Iran Deal.
• Moved U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem.
• Protecting Americans from terrorists with the Travel Ban, upheld by Supreme Court.
• Issued Executive Order to keep open Guantanamo Bay.
• Concluded a historic U.S.-Mexico Trade Deal to replace NAFTA. And negotiations with Canada are underway as we speak.
• Reached a breakthrough agreement with the E.U. to increase U.S. exports.
• Imposed tariffs on foreign steel and aluminum to protect our national security.
• Imposed tariffs on China in response to China’s forced technology transfer, intellectual property theft, and their chronically abusive trade practices.
• Net exports are on track to increase by $59 billion this year.
• Improved vetting and screening for refugees, and switched focus to overseas resettlement.
• We have begun BUILDING THE WALL. Republicans want STRONG BORDERS and NO CRIME. Democrats want OPEN BORDERS which equals MASSIVE CRIME.

Trump name-checks 'Squad' at evangelical rally: 'The Enemy from Within

Faith leaders pray over President Donald Trump during an "Evangelicals for Trump Coalition Launch" at King Jesus International Ministry Friday in Miami. (Associated Press)

President Trump blasted three of the four freshmen congressional Democrats known as "The Squad" in front of an audience of his evangelical supporters in Miami on Friday, accusing them of holding anti-Semitic views.
“These people hate Israel. They hate Jewish people,” Trump said at the launch of his "Evangelicals for Trump" group inside a megachurch. “I won’t name them. I won’t bring up the name of Omar, Tlaib, AOC. I won’t bring that name up. Won’t bring it up. I will not bring it up." The president was referring to U.S. Reps. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn.; Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich.; and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y. The Squad member he did not mention was U.S. Rep. Ayanna Pressley, D-Mass. 

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y

U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn.

Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich.

U.S. Rep. Ayanna Pressley, D-Mass. 

The three lawmakers have drawn the ire of conservatives for their criticism of Israel since taking office last January. Omar and Tlaib were among 17 members of Congress who voted against a resolution to condemn the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement in July.
Omar was accused of anti-Semitism last year for her criticism of Israel and tweeting that a prominent lobbying group was paying members of Congress to support the country. The comment drew rebuke from Democrats as well as Republicans.
Trump later urged Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to block Omar and Tlaib from visiting Israel, resulting in an outcry from Democratic lawmakers. Israel later did block the lawmakers just before a planned visit.

Tlaib had requested to visit her grandmother in the Israeli-occupied West Bank but abruptly canceled her plans after she was given permission on humanitarian grounds.
In March 2019, the House overwhelmingly passed a measure in March 2019 condemning anti-Semitism, Islamophobia and other forms of hatred.
Trump has gone after the Squad members in the past. In July, he said they should go back “crime-infested places from which they came” in an inflammatory tweet that was described by many as racist.
Trump spoke to more than 5,000 Christians, including a large group of Latinos, at El Rey Jesús church, just days after he was the subject of a scathing editorial in Christianity Today magazine that called for his removal from office. Thousands of the faithful lifted their hands and prayed over Trump as he began speaking and portrayed himself as a defender of faith.
The president made no mention of the editorial, which ran in a magazine founded by the late Rev. Billy Graham. Campaign officials said the Miami event was in the works well before the editorial.
Mark Galli, the Christianity Today editor who wrote the editorial, retired Friday.
“We're defending religion itself. A society without religion cannot prosper. A nation without faith cannot endure," said Trump, who also tried to paint his Democratic rivals for the 2020 election as threats to religious liberty. “We can't let one of our radical left friends come in here because everything we've done will be gone in short order.”
The kickoff of “Evangelicals for Trump” will be followed in the weeks ahead by the launches of “Catholics for Trump” and “Jewish Voices for Trump."
The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Jared Kushner, Ronna McDaniel to headline Trump donor 'thank you' event after huge 2020 cash haul

White House senior adviser Jared Kushner and Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel will reportedly headline a donor "thank you" event to celebrate the Trump 2020 Campaign and the RNC's large fundraising haul Saturday in Palm Beach, Fla.
The event is scheduled to be held at conservative billionaire Bill Koch’s house and is slated to have a host of Trump donors in attendance, Politico reported.
TRUMP CAMPAIGN BLOWS PAST 2020 DEMS WITH LATEST FUNDRAISING HAUL, SITTING ON OVER $100M
The Trump 2020 Campaign and the RNC announced last week that they jointly raised $463 million last year, far beyond Democrats.
The Trump campaign reported brought in $46 million in the fourth quarter of 2019 with a total of $143 million in 2019.
Unlike his brothers David and Charles who sat out the 2016 election, Bill has thrown his support behind the president.
David Koch, who was Bill Koch's twin brother, died Aug. 23 at age 79.
Trump isn’t scheduled to be at the event, but he will host a fundraiser later in the month at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, according to Politico.
Trump held an evangelical rally near Miami on Friday where he launched his “Evangelicals for Trump” coalition, claiming Democrats are pursuing an “anti-religious” agenda.

Omar Iran Cartoons