BAGHDAD – Leading Iraqi Shiite figures warned Monday against attempts to pull their country into a war between the U.S. and Iran, saying it would turn Iraq into a battlefield yet again, just as it is on the path to recovery.
The warning came hours after a rocket slammed into Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone, landing less than a mile from the sprawling U.S. Embassy. No injuries were reported and no group immediately claimed the Sunday night attack.
Shortly after, President Donald Trump tweeted a warning to Iran not to threaten the United States or it will face its "official end."
Last week, the U.S. ordered the evacuation of nonessential diplomatic staff from Iraq amid unspecified threats from Iran and rising tensions across the region. The White House has also sent warships and bombers to the Persian Gulf to counter the alleged Iranian threats.
On Monday, two influential Shiite clerics and a leading politician — all with close ties to Iran — warned that Iraq could once again get caught in the middle. The country hosts more than 5,000 U.S. troops, and is home to powerful Iranian-backed militias, some of whom want those U.S. forces to leave.
Populist Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr said any political party that would drag Iraq in a U.S.-Iran war "would be the enemy of the Iraqi people."
"This war would mark the end of Iraq," the black-turbaned al-Sadr warned. "We need peace and reconstruction."
Qais al-Khazali, the leader the Iranian-backed Asaib Ahl al-Haq, or League of the Righteous group, tweeted that he is opposed to operations that "give pretexts for war" and added that they would only "harm Iraq's political, economic and security conditions."
For the Shiite-majority Iraq to be a theater for proxy wars is not new. It lies on the fault line between Shiite Iran and the mostly Sunni Arab world, led by powerhouse Saudi Arabia, and has long been the setting where Saudi-Iran rivalry for regional supremacy played out.
After America's 2003 invasion of Iraq to oust dictator Saddam Hussein, American troops and Iranian-backed militiamen fought pitched battles around the country, and scores of U.S. troops were killed or wounded by sophisticated Iranian-made weapons.
The office of Hadi al-Amiri, the leader of a coalition of Shiite paramilitary forces backed by both Baghdad and Tehran, released a statement calling on Iraqis to work together "to keep Iraq and the region away from war."
"If war breaks out ... it will burn everyone," al-Amiri warned.
BAGHDAD – Leading Iraqi Shiite figures warned Monday against attempts to pull their country into a war between the U.S. and Iran, saying it would turn Iraq into a battlefield yet again, just as it is on the path to recovery.
The warning came hours after a rocket slammed into Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone, landing less than a mile from the sprawling U.S. Embassy. No injuries were reported and no group immediately claimed the Sunday night attack.
Shortly after, President Donald Trump tweeted a warning to Iran not to threaten the United States or it will face its "official end."
Last week, the U.S. ordered the evacuation of nonessential diplomatic staff from Iraq amid unspecified threats from Iran and rising tensions across the region. The White House has also sent warships and bombers to the Persian Gulf to counter the alleged Iranian threats.
On Monday, two influential Shiite clerics and a leading politician — all with close ties to Iran — warned that Iraq could once again get caught in the middle. The country hosts more than 5,000 U.S. troops, and is home to powerful Iranian-backed militias, some of whom want those U.S. forces to leave.
Populist Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr said any political party that would drag Iraq in a U.S.-Iran war "would be the enemy of the Iraqi people."
"This war would mark the end of Iraq," the black-turbaned al-Sadr warned. "We need peace and reconstruction."
Qais al-Khazali, the leader the Iranian-backed Asaib Ahl al-Haq, or League of the Righteous group, tweeted that he is opposed to operations that "give pretexts for war" and added that they would only "harm Iraq's political, economic and security conditions."
For the Shiite-majority Iraq to be a theater for proxy wars is not new. It lies on the fault line between Shiite Iran and the mostly Sunni Arab world, led by powerhouse Saudi Arabia, and has long been the setting where Saudi-Iran rivalry for regional supremacy played out.
After America's 2003 invasion of Iraq to oust dictator Saddam Hussein, American troops and Iranian-backed militiamen fought pitched battles around the country, and scores of U.S. troops were killed or wounded by sophisticated Iranian-made weapons.
The office of Hadi al-Amiri, the leader of a coalition of Shiite paramilitary forces backed by both Baghdad and Tehran, released a statement calling on Iraqis to work together "to keep Iraq and the region away from war."
"If war breaks out ... it will burn everyone," al-Amiri warned.
Dubai, United Arab Emirates -- President Trump warned Iran early on Monday not to threaten the United States again or it would face its "official end," shortly after a rocket landed near the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad overnight.
Mr. Trump's tweet came after he seemingly sought to soften his tone on Iran following days of heightened tension sparked by the sudden deployment by the U.S. of bombers and an aircraft carrier to the Persian Gulf over still-unspecified threats.
All the tensions are the culmination of Mr. Trump's decision a year ago to pull the U.S. out of Tehran's nuclear deal with world powers. And while both Washington and Tehran say they don't seek war, many worry any miscalculation at this fraught moment could spiral out of control.
Mr. Trump's tweet has already been met with reaction out of Tehran, with Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif tweeting that the U.S. president hopes to achieve what "other aggressors" like violent Mongolian ruler Genghis Khan "failed to do."
Goaded by #B_Team, @realdonaldTrump hopes to achieve what Alexander, Genghis & other aggressors failed to do. Iranians have stood tall for millennia while aggressors all gone. #EconomicTerrorism & genocidal taunts won't "end Iran". #NeverThreatenAnIranian. Try respect—it works!
"Iranians have stood tall for millennia while aggressors all gone. Economic Terrorism & genocidal taunts won't 'end Iran,'" Zarif added.
Mr. Trump's early Monday tweet was posted just hours after a Katyusha rocket fell in Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone near the statue of the Unknown Soldier, less than a mile from the U.S. Embassy, causing no injuries. Iraqi military spokesman Brig. Gen. Yahya Rasoul told The Associated Press the rocket was believed to have been fired from east Baghdad. The area is home to Iran-backed Shiite militias.
Later, Iraqi forces said they recovered the rocket in front of the Technological university in Baghdad.
The Reuters news agency reported the blast was heard across central Baghdad and pointed out that the embassy and U.S. consulate in the Iraqi Kurdish regional capital of Erbil had already moved out non-emergency staffers "out of apparent concern about perceived threats from Iran."
Mr. Trump tweeted, "If Iran wants to fight, that will be the official end of Iran. Never threaten the United States again!" The president didn't elaborate, nor did the White House.
Hours later, two influential Shiite figures in Iraq warned about pulling their country into a war between the United States and Iran, saying it would turn Iraq into a battlefield and inflict much harm.
Iraq's populist Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr said in a statement on Monday that any political party that would involve Iraq in a U.S.-Iran war "would be the enemy of the Iraqi people," and Qais al-Khazali, the leader of an Iranian-backed group, said he is opposed to operations that "give pretexts for war."
Mr. Trump campaigned on pulling the U.S. from the 2015 nuclear accord, which saw Iran agree to limit its enrichment of uranium in exchange for the lifting of economic sanctions. Since the U.S. withdrawal, Washington has re-imposed previous sanctions and come up with new ones, as well as warned nations around the world they would be subject to sanctions as well if they import Iranian oil.
Iran just announced it would begin backing away from terms of the deal, setting a 60-day deadline for Europe to come up with new terms or it would begin enriching uranium closer to weapons-grade levels. Tehran long has insisted it does not seek nuclear weapons, though the West fears its program could enableit to build atomic bombs.
In an interview aired Sunday on the Fox News Channel, Mr. Trump called the nuclear deal a "horror show."
"I just don't want them to have nuclear weapons and they can't be threatening us," Mr. Trump said.
However, the nuclear deal had kept Iran from being able to acquire enough highly enriched uranium for a bomb. U.N. inspectors repeatedly certified that Iran was complying with the accord.
In Saudi Arabia, the kingdom's military said it intercepted two missiles fired by the Houthi rebels in neighboring Yemen. The missiles were intercepted over the city of Taif and the Red Sea port city of Jiddah, the Saudi-owned satellite channel Al-Arabiya reported.
The channel cited witnesses for its information. The Saudi government has yet to acknowledge the missile fire, which other Saudi media also reported. Hundreds of rockets, mortars and ballistic missiles have been fired into the kingdom since a Saudi-led coalition declared war on the Houthis in March 2015 to support Yemen's internationally recognized government.
Between the two targeted cities is Mecca, home to the cube-shaped Kaaba that Muslims pray toward five times a day. Many religious pilgrims are now in the city amid the Muslim holy fasting month of Ramadan.
Meanwhile, the U.S. Navy's 5th Fleet on Sunday announced it would begin "enhanced security patrols" in international waters with members of the Gulf Cooperation Council, which includes Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
Already, the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier, the amphibious assault ship USS Kearsarge and others are in the Arabian Sea, waters close to the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf through which a third of all oil traded at sea passes.
President Donald Trump issued a strong warning to Iran early Monday, saying that it would face its "official end" if a war broke out between the two countries.
"Never again threaten the United States," Trump said in a tweet shortly after a rocket landed near the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, Iraq, overnight.
Trump's comments came after he has seemingly sought to soften his tone on Iran in recent days following heightened tension sparked by a sudden deployment of U.S. bombers and an aircraft carrier to the Persian Gulf over unspecified threats.
GOP lawmaker on Iran threat: Directive was to 'kill and kidnap American soldiers'
Iraq's military said the Katyusha rocket that landed in Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone less than a mile from the U.S. Embassy, causing no injures, was believed to have been fired from east Baghdad. The area is home to Iran-backed Shiite militias.
Congress is expected to get a classified briefing on Iran on Tuesday after Democratic and Republican lawmakers requested more information from the White House about the intelligence that has led to the growing U.S. military footprint in the Gulf. The State Department ordered a partial evacuation of the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad last week.
In an interview with Fox News broadcast on Sunday, Trump said he was not seeking a conflict with Iran but he also vowed not to let it develop nuclear weapons.
"I'm not somebody that wants to go into war, because war hurts economies, war kills people most importantly – by far most importantly," the president said.
Officials in Iran have also downplayed Tehran's appetite for war.
"There will not be a war since neither we want a war nor does anyone have the illusion they can confront Iran in the region," Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif told the Middle East country's state news agency Irna over the weekend.
There has been no official reaction to Trump's Monday tweet.
Tensions between Iran and the United States have escalated one year after Trump withdrew from the nuclear deal between Iran and world powers and reimposed sanctions that have severely harmed its economy. Tehran has demanded that European signatories to the nuclear accord – France, Germany and the United Kingdom – find a way of keeping the agreement alive or it will again start enriching uranium at levels sufficient to pursuing a nuclear weapons program.
Trump says he doesn't want war: Is John Bolton driving the U.S. into a conflict?
A top Swedish prosecutor on Monday formally asked that WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange be detained in absentia over the alleged rape of a woman in her home nearly a decade ago, reports said.
The move was seen as the first step in his possible extradition from Britain. The Australian also faces a U.S. extradition warrant for allegedly conspiring to hack into a Pentagon computer.
Eva-Marie Persson, the deputy director of public prosecutions in Sweden, announced her request that he be held "on probable cause suspected for rape."
While a case of alleged sexual misconduct was dropped in 2017 when the statute of limitations expired, a rape allegation remains. Swedish authorities have had to shelf it because Assange was living at the embassy at the time and there was no prospect of bringing him to Sweden.
The statute of limitations in that case expires in August next year. Assange has denied wrongdoing, asserting that the allegations were politically motivated and that the sex was consensual.
Per E. Samuelson, Assange’s Swedish lawyer, told the Associated Press earlier this month that the decision to reopen the rape case is "outrageous."
Assange, who was evicted last month from the Ecuadorian Embassy where he had been holed up since 2012, was arrested by British police on April 11 and is currently serving a 50-week sentence for jumping bail in 2012.
Persson said Monday that British authorities will decide any conflict between a European arrest warrant and U.S. extradition request for Assange.
“In the event of a conflict between a European Arrest Warrant and a request for extradition from the US, UK authorities will decide on the order of priority,” she said. “The outcome of this process is impossible to predict.”
