That was their retribution. Iraqi Prime Minister Press Office, via Associated Press. “Let’s stay calm,” he said. American intelligence officials monitoring communications between Kataib Hezbollah and General Suleimani's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps learned that the Iranians wanted to keep the pressure on the Americans but had not intended to escalate the low-level conflict. In a 15-minute call, Foreign Minister Heiko Maas of Germany said the killing had not made it any easier to stabilize the region. As the head of the elite Quds Force, General Suleimani was effectively the second-most powerful man in Iran and had a hand in managing proxy wars in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Yemen, including a campaign of roadside bombs and other attacks that killed an estimated 600 American troops during the height of the Iraq war. Let’s all sleep on it.”, By the time Mr. Trump retired to the residence for the night, advisers said, he was relieved there had been no casualties and eager for a reset, a path away from a deeper conflict. For the past 18 months, officials said, there had been discussions about whether to target General Suleimani. “Sir, we have indications of a launch at 22:30 Zulu Time from western Iran in the direction of Iraq, Syria and Jordan.” Reports began coming in faster. It’s easy to imagine how historians might someday see 2020 as the onset of a new dark age. Despite Mr. Trump’s threat, none of the targets on the list were actually cultural, an official said; that was just presidential bluster, aggravated by an instinct to double down in the face of criticism. Whether you heard all about a TV series and weren’t able to watch it. The president’s decision to ratchet up decades of simmering conflict with Iran set off an extraordinary worldwide drama, much of which played out behind the scenes. The Trump administration has said that General Suleimani was going to Baghdad as part of the attack plot, but there are different theories about the purpose of his visit. “There was a state of mobilization to get ready in case that was the first stage in a wider plan,” said Mohammed Obeid, a Lebanese political activist with ties to Iran’s “resistance axis” in the region. Here's how, where, and when to see the new bright comet NEOWISE (C/2020 F3) in the sky in 2020. American officials disputed that characterization and analysts doubted it was that explicit, although that could be how Tehran interpreted it. He posted a reassuring tweet: “All is well!”. While Mr. Trump tipped off another hawk, Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, who was visiting in Florida, his administration gave no advance warning to its European allies or Persian Gulf partners in advance of the strike. When President Bashar al-Assad of Syria visited Tehran last year, it was General Suleimani who welcomed him. While Mr. Pompeo also claimed later that such an attack could kill “hundreds,” other officials said they had no specific intelligence suggesting that. Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler was so alarmed he dispatched his brother to Washington for a clandestine meeting with Mr. Trump. “This camp believes that there will be such a clash anyway and the best timing is before the U.S. elections — and that Israel may lose this president in the White House,” said Ofer Zalzberg, an analyst at the International Crisis Group. Mr. Esper, a veteran of the Persian Gulf war of 1991, counseled caution. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo initially cited the need to forestall an “imminent” attack and the president has amplified that to say four American embassies were targeted. For years, Iran has sponsored proxy forces in Iraq, competing for influence with American troops who first arrived in the invasion of 2003. European leaders, incensed at being kept in the dark, scrambled to keep Iran from escalating. Iran braced for more. Mr. Trump’s withdrawal from the 2015 nuclear accord with Iran has been a major point of contention. In the space of a few months, the world was staggered by … Officials told her there was additional intelligence that he was working on a large-scale attack intended to drive American forces out of the Middle East. After it did respond, firing 16 missiles at bases housing American troops without hurting anyone as a relatively harmless show of force, a message came back through the Swiss saying that would be the end of its reprisal for now. Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany spoke with Mr. Trump, too, and expressed concern for Iraq’s stability if allied troops withdrew. Figuring that it would be too difficult to hit him in Iran, officials contemplated going after him during one of his frequent visits to Syria or Iraq and focused on developing agents in seven different entities to report on his movements — the Syrian Army, the Quds Force in Damascus, Hezbollah in Damascus, the Damascus and Baghdad airports and the Kataib Hezbollah and Popular Mobilization forces in Iraq. He would be delivered to his plane at the last possible moment, then sit in the front row of business class so he could get off first and depart quickly. The plane landed at Baghdad International Airport just after midnight, at 12:36 a.m., and the first to disembark were General Suleimani and his entourage. “Macron’s specificity is that he does not approve, but he also does not condemn,” said Michel Duclos, a former French ambassador to Syria. The Saudi view was “hitting Suleimani is great, but what is the plan?” said Sir John Jenkins, a former British ambassador to Riyadh. But the United States also sent secret messages through Swiss intermediaries urging Iran not to respond so forcefully that Mr. Trump would feel compelled to go even further. After Iranian forces were blamed for an attack on two Saudi oil facilities in September and Mr. Trump opted against a military response, Saudi officials worried that they were vulnerable and opened a back channel. The note also refers to “Iranian martyrs” Qassem Soleimani, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Force commander killed in a U.S. drone strike in Iran on Jan. 3, 2020, and Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, head of the Iranian military nuclear program, who was assassinated near Tehran on Nov. 27, in a hit for which Iran has blamed Israel. There was little dissent about killing General Suleimani among Mr. Trump’s senior advisers, but some Pentagon officials were shocked that the president picked what they considered the most extreme option and some intelligence officials worried that the possible long-term ramifications were not adequately considered, particularly if action on Iraqi soil prompted Iraq to expel American forces. And through the Swiss came another message: That was it. No major European power, not even Britain, voiced support for the drone strike, even as leaders agreed that General Suleimani had blood on his hands. During a closed briefing this week with members of the House, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Mark A. Milley, described the evidence as the “best intelligence” he had seen during his career. As Le Monde, the French newspaper, put it, the rift signaled “a new stage in the trans-Atlantic divorce over the Middle East.”. The same night General Suleimani died, American forces tried to kill Mr. Shahlai, the Quds Force commander in Yemen mentioned in Mr. O’Brien’s memo. Some of the Marines made dry jokes about the movie, “Rules of Engagement,” starring Samuel L. Jackson as a commander whose unit fires on a crowd of embassy protesters, stirring an international episode and a court-martial. But they refused to describe it in detail. officer who served in Iraq. Agents recruited in Syria and Iraq reported from time to time on General Suleimani’s movements, according to an official involved. Top vampire movies to watch on Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, Disney+ & other Streaming services, out on DVD/Blu-ray or in cinema's right now. headquarters in Langley, Va., Gina Haspel was working to fulfill that prayer. So when rockets smashed into the K1 military base near Kirkuk on Dec. 27, killing an American civilian contractor, Nawres Waleed Hamid, and injuring several others, the only surprise was the casualties. Still, watching television in Florida, Mr. Trump grew agitated by the chaos and ready to authorize a more robust response. New Yorker writers reflect on the year’s highs and lows. But Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi, still serving as a caretaker until a new government is formed, told Parliament after the drone strike that General Suleimani had another goal — to bring an Iranian response to a Saudi offer to reduce tensions. The missiles were staggered but most were streaking toward Al Asad Air Base in Iraq, home to 2,000 American troops. Mr. Trump publicly threatened to hit Iranian cultural sites. Browse our range of New TV Series below. Still, the attack failed because of an undisclosed problem with the intelligence. Although three promising comets - 2I/Borisov, C/2019 Y4 (ATLAS), and C/2020 F8 (SWAN) - have already disintegrated this year, observers can hope for a positive outcome for another bright comet - NEOWISE (C/2020 F3). Then, just before the plane door closed, a convoy of cars pulled up on the tarmac carrying Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani, Iran’s security mastermind, who climbed on board along with two escorts. Another lawmaker noted that the three dates General Milley cited were all before the strike on General Suleimani and no attacks actually occurred then. The number of newborns in China plummeted 15% in 2020 from a year earlier, according to the Ministry of Public Security, with the onset of the novel coronavirus disrupting the economy and weighing on decisions to have a family. And in the confusion, a Ukrainian civilian passenger jet was destroyed by an Iranian missile, killing 176 people. If the United States stayed, she said, Germany would also. The only foreign leader who appeared in the know was Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, who had spoken with Mr. Pompeo before the attack and later offered a cryptic public hint hours before it took place. But the sharp increase seen across the three market trackers suggests Tehran has been more successful recently in selling its oil. Our New TV series spans a range of genres. He hoped to install a new anti-American government that might even throw out United States forces. “Suleimani as a person inspired the masses, he was a national icon, he symbolized the struggle,” said Ali Alfoneh, a senior fellow at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington who studies Iran. But that did not matter to Mr. Trump and his team. But administration officials said they did not actually know when or where such an attack might occur and one State Department official said it was “a mistake” to use the word “imminent.” And some senior military commanders were stunned that Mr. Trump picked what they considered a radical option with unforeseen consequences. WASHINGTON — The plane was late and the kill team was worried. This account, based on interviews with dozens of Trump administration officials, military officers, diplomats, intelligence analysts and others in the United States, Europe and the Middle East, offers new details about what may be the most consequential seven days of the Trump presidency. Members of the Iranian-backed group, known as the Popular Mobilization Forces, in 2017 at the border between Iraq and Syria. The memo also listed a more provocative option — targeting specific Iranian officials for death by military strike. Or want to watch your favourite TV series all over again. Whatever his goals, they died with him in the mangled wreckage at Baghdad’s airport. We would like to show you a description here but the site won’t allow us. Ms. Merkel laughed. In any case, Mr. Leitner went back to the Foreign Ministry at day’s end for the Iranian response. This change is expected to take place between 2020 and 2022. He sought validation from guests at his Florida clubs, recounting details of the Baghdad Embassy protests and drinking in their praise for his decisiveness. Advisers told him Iran had probably misinterpreted his previous reluctance to use force as a sign of weakness. But inside the security establishment, few consider the crisis to be over. “They didn’t even pretend to be engaged in information sharing and consultation.”, Senator Mike Lee, Republican of Utah, called the session for senators “probably the worst briefing” in his nine years in office. The next morning Mr. Trump addressed the nation from the White House, and while he excoriated Iran’s “campaign of terror,” he made clear he would not retaliate further. Various alternatives were discussed, some in Syria, some in Iraq. And on Dec. 31, even as the protests were beginning, a top secret memo started circulating, signed by Robert C. O’Brien, his national security adviser, and listing potential targets, including an Iranian energy facility and a command-and-control ship used by the Revolutionary Guards to direct small boats that harass oil tankers in the waters around Iran. In the months to come, they expect Iran to regroup and find ways to strike back. To reestablish deterrence, he should authorize a tough response. Meanwhile, SVB International in Washington said Iran exported 585,000 barrels of crude oil a day in November, up from 230,000 earlier in 2020. Watch your favourite TV series over and over. By September, the United States Central Command and Joint Special Operations Command were brought into the process to plan a possible operation. By the time tensions with Iran spiked in May with attacks on four oil tankers, John R. Bolton, then the president’s national security adviser, asked the military and intelligence agencies to produce new options to deter Iranian aggression. the first of several missiles smashed into the vehicles, 16 missiles at bases housing American troops, boasted that he had taken out an American enemy, rockets smashed into the K1 military base, called off a retaliatory strike with 10 minutes to go, breaking into the American Embassy compound, General Suleimani was effectively the second-most powerful man, after the collapse of the government in November, “No. LONDON—Iran has circumvented U.S. sanctions and exported more oil to China and other countries in recent months, providing a lifeline for its struggling economy and undermining the Trump administration’s so-called maximum pressure campaign against Tehran. 1 terrorist anywhere in the world.”. You can read this article in German. President Emmanuel Macron of France played an active role, reaching out to both sides. An image of Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani on a building in Tehran. As the head of the elite Quds Force, General Suleimani was effectively the second-most powerful man in Iran. “The whole thing seems haphazard to me,” said Marc Polymeropoulos, a former senior C.I.A. International listings showed that Cham Wings Airlines Flight 6Q501, scheduled to take off from Damascus at 7:30 p.m. for Baghdad, had departed, but in fact, an informant at the airport reported, it was still on the ground and the targeted passenger had not yet shown up. After the Arab Spring and war with the Islamic State,  he had emerged as the public figure most associated with Iran’s goal of achieving regional dominance. We did not take action to start a war. In the lead up to the attacks, Iranian officials had said Iran would retaliate against U.S. forces for the killing of general Qasem Soleimani in Baghdad on 3 January 2020. The barrage ended after an hour but base commanders ordered troops to remain in shelter in case more missiles came. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo claimed later that an attack by Iran could kill “hundreds,” but other officials said they had no specific intelligence suggesting that. The C.I.A. “Every time we got close, they said, ‘Well, we can’t discuss that here because it’s sensitive.’”. An antigovernment protest in Baghdad in October, when demonstrators called for an end to corruption and a change in leadership. Indeed, Mr. Trump opened his first statement to reporters on the mission that Friday by describing General Suleimani as the “No. A proposal has been agreed to by the Iranian parliament to drop four zeros, by replacing the rial with a new currency called the toman, the name of a previous Iranian currency, at the rate of one toman = 10,000 rials. “If there is a plan, we are down with it. General Suleimani had long played a role as power broker in Iraqi politics, and two Iraqi politicians with links to Iran said he was coming to Baghdad to help break an impasse over replacing the prime minister after the collapse of the government in November in the face of anti-Iran protests. Iran may find other ways to take revenge. The ruins of the ancient city of Persepolis in southern Iran in 2014. Farsiland provides full archive of Iranian Movies, Persian Movies, Film Irani 2020, Iranian TV Series, Persian TV Series, Film Farsi, Filme Irani Yet some figured that if Hezbollah were to attack Israel on Iran’s behalf, it might be better to have that battle now. One lawmaker said the information was no more secret than what could be found on Wikipedia. The most important European country in these seven days, it turned out, was Switzerland, which has served as the intermediary between the United States and Iran since they broke off diplomatic relations in 1980. There’s no rush to do anything. Unbeknown to the Iranians, Mr. Trump had agreed to targeting the other sites originally considered — the oil and gas facility and the command-in-control ship — as part of any further retaliation that might be necessary if Iran responded to the drone strike. The more conservative figures suggest U.S. sanctions have kept most Iranian crude bottled up. Meanwhile, SVB International in Washington said Iran exported 585,000 barrels of crude oil a day in November, up from 230,000 earlier in 2020. In Riyadh, the Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, was unsettled. The confrontation may have actually begun by accident. Pro-Iranian groups have recently resumed rocket attacks there, nearly a year after Iran launched ballistic missiles at the Ayn al Asad air base in western Iraq. Two cars carrying the group headed into the night — shadowed by American MQ-9 Reaper drones. Seven Days in January: How Trump Pushed U.S. and Iran to the Brink of War. General Milley said the evidence could not be clearer and was the “best intelligence” he had seen during his career. The rockets landed in a place and at a time when American and Iraqi personnel normally were not there and it was only by unlucky chance that Mr. Hamid was killed, American officials said. “What really came across was a sense of disdain and contempt for the legislative branch,” said Representative Gerald E. Connolly, Democrat of Virginia. The Americans “said that if you want to get revenge, get revenge in proportion to what we did,” Rear Adm. Ali Fadavi, the deputy commander of the Revolutionary Guards, told Iranian state television.
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