France has warned it will retaliate with the full backing of the European Union if the United States imposes tariffs on up to $2.4 billion worth of French products, including Champagne, Roquefort cheese, handbags, and lipstick.

The U.S. is considering 100% tariffs on some French goods in response to France’s decision to tax the local digital business of major tech companies like Google and Facebook. With a decision on the tariffs expected in coming days, French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire met Tuesday with EU trade chief Phil Hogan in Paris.

“We believe that the American project of sanctions against the French digital tax is unfriendly, inappropriate and illegitimate,” Le Maire said.

If U.S. tariffs were to be imposed, “we would bring the case to the World Trade Organization and we would be ready to react,” Le Maire said.

Hogan said the question of the digital tax is a “very major bone of contention with the United States.”

 “The EU commission will stand together with France,” he added.

France has since last year been imposing a 3% annual tax on revenues in France of digital companies with yearly global sales worth more than 750 million euros ($830 million) and French revenue exceeding 25 million euros. France is pushing for a global agreement on how to better tax digital operations, which are typically reported in the company’s home country instead of the place where it does business.

Asked about potential retaliation measures from France, Le Maire said the country is considering “all options.” He did not further elaborate.

The U.S. are expected to announce the potential tariffs by next week, but France called on the Trump administration to refrain from taking a decision while negotiations are ongoing at the Paris-based the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

In a phone call with U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin on Monday, Le Maire said the sides had agreed “to intensify efforts in the coming days to try to find a compromise.”

In talks with President Donald Trump last August, French President Emmanuel Macron vowed France would abandon its digital tax if an agreement to better tax digital businesses was found at the OECD, which comprises 134 countries.

…

Authorities in Japan have issued an arrest warrant for the wife of former Nissan chairman Carlos Ghosn, who fled the country last week while awaiting trial on charges of financial misconduct.

Prosecutors have accused Carole Ghosn of providing false testimony in a Tokyo court last year in her husband’s case.

Ghosn escaped to Lebanon on December 29, a move that stunned both his legal team and law enforcement officials in Japan, where he was under strict restrictions under the terms of his bail agreement.  He was initially arrested in November 2018 and charged with diverting millions of dollars from a Nissan subsidiary for his personal use, and of underreporting his income.

Ghosn says the charges are a conspiracy concocted by Nissan executives who opposed his plans for a fuller merger between the Japanese automaker and its French alliance partner Renault.  Ghosn will hold a press conference Wednesday in Beirut to discuss the so-called “coup” against him.  

Nissan issued a written statement Tuesday vowing to continue to seek “appropriate legal action” against Ghosn despite his escape to Lebanon.  

Ghosn reportedly took a bullet train from Tokyo to Osaka, then hid himself in a large container that was flown aboard a private jet to Istanbul before traveling to Lebanon, which does not have an extradition treaty with Japan.

He was credited for steering Nissan from the brink of bankruptcy to becoming one of the world’s top-selling automakers. He engineered a three-way alliance with Renault and one-time domestic rival Mitsubishi Motors.

…

The wife of Vice President Constantino Chiwenga was granted bail by Zimbabwe’s High Court on Monday after spending three weeks in detention for allegedly trying to kill her husband.

Prosecutors say Marry Mubaiwa, who denies all charges, tried to unplug Chiwenga’s life support tubes in a South African hospital in June. She was initially arrested on Dec. 14 on separate charges including fraud and money laundering.

A High Court judgment seen by Reuters showed Judge Pisirai Kwenda has granted Mubaiwa bail for 50,000 Zimbabwe dollars ($3,000), and ordered her to surrender her diplomatic passport and report to a local police station once every two weeks.

Mubaiwa is also required to hand over the title deeds of her parents’ house with the court, the document showed.

Her lawyer, Taona Nyamakura, said Mubaiwa could be released from prison on Monday or Tuesday.

Her arrest has sparked accusations against Chiwenga and the anti-corruption agency that initially arrested her.

Opposition politicians say the vice president is using his position to influence a divorce settlement with Mubaiwa, while the Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission (ZACC), which says she illegally transferred $900 million to South Africa, is conflicted.

The ZACC denies this. Chiwenga, who returned to China last week for a medical review, could not be reached for comment.

…

A 5.8-magnitude quake hit Puerto Rico before dawn Monday, unleashing small landslides, causing power outages and severely cracking some homes. It was one of the strongest quakes yet to hit the U.S. territory that has been shaking for the past week.
                   
There were no immediate reports of casualties.
                   
Another quake measured at magnitude 5.1 struck later Monday, at 10:51 a.m. (1451 GMT), shaking power lines and frightening residents of southern Puerto Rico who had been waiting outside their homes due to fears the buildings were damaged and unstable.
                   
The first quake struck at 6:32 a.m. (1032 GMT) just south of the island at a relatively shallow depth of 10 kilometers (6 miles), according to the U.S. Geological Service. There was no tsunami threat, officials said.
                   

Power outages were reported in some parts of Puerto Rico following the quake, Angel Vazquez, emergency management director for the southern coastal city of Ponce, told The Associated Press.
                   
“This is one of the strongest quakes to date since it started shaking on Dec. 28,” he said. “It lasted a long time.”
                   
Residents in southern coastal towns began posting pictures of partially collapsed homes and large boulders blocking roads as officials urged people to remain calm.
                   
Dr. Sindia Alvarado, who lives in the southern coastal town of Penuelas, said she was petrified.
                   
“My entire family woke up screaming,” she said. “I thought the house was going to crack in half.”
                   
At a hotel in the southwest coastal town of Guanica, people panicked as they tried to flee in their cars, only to realize that large boulders were obstructing the only highway heading north to the capital of San Juan, attorney Jose Francisco Benitez told the AP.
                   
“There was a state of panic,” he said. “There were even people in their underwear walking around the hotel.”
                   
He said he and his girlfriend were in the room when the quake struck.
                   
“I have never felt anything like this,” he said. “It was like a giant grabbed our room and shook it.”
                   
The flurry of quakes in Puerto Rico’s southern region began the night of Dec. 28, with quakes ranging in magnitude from 4.7 to 5.1. Previous quakes of lesser magnitudes in recent days have cracked homes and led to goods falling off supermarket shelves.
                   
Victor Huerfano, director of Puerto Rico’s Seismic Network, told the AP that shallow quakes were occurring along three faults in Puerto Rico’s southwest region: Lajas Valley, Montalva Point and the Guayanilla Canyon. He said the quakes overall come as the North American plate and the Caribbean plate squeezes Puerto Rico, and that it was unclear when they would stop or if bigger quakes would occur.
                   
One of the largest and most damaging earthquakes to hit Puerto Rico occurred in October 1918, when a 7.3-magnitude quake struck near the island’s northwest coast, unleashing a tsunami and killing 116 people.

…

As people around the world welcome the new year with wishes of peace and prosperity, many in the disputed South Asian region of Kashmir are facing the prospect of a hard year ahead. Roshan Mughal reports how tensions between nuclear-armed rivals India and Pakistan are costing local fruit farmers dearly. His story is narrated by Ayesha Tanzeem.

…

Asthma is often controlled with an inhaler, or, sometimes, with medication. When neither works, it might be that the patient doesn’t have asthma at all. VOA’s Carol Pearson reports that researchers have found another disease with the same symptoms as asthma that actually starts in the stomach.

…

Five people were killed and about 60 were injured on the Pennsylvania Turnpike early Sunday morning, when a loaded bus went out of control on a hill and rolled over, setting off a chain reaction that involved three tractor-trailers and a passenger car.

The injured victims, ranging from 7 to 67 years old, are all expected to survive, though two patients remain in critical condition, authorities and hospital officials said Sunday afternoon. The crash, which happened at 3:40 a.m. on a mountainous and rural stretch of the interstate about 30 miles (50 kilometers) east of Pittsburgh, shut down the highway in both directions for several hours before it reopened Sunday evening.

The bus, operated by a New Jersey-based company called Z & D Tours, was traveling from Rockaway, New Jersey, to Cincinnati, Ohio, Pennsylvania State Police spokesman Stephen Limani told reporters.

He said the bus was traveling downhill on a curve, careened up an embankment and rolled over. Two tractor-trailers then struck the bus. A third tractor-trailer then crashed into those trucks. A passenger car was also involved in the pileup.

Photos from the scene show a mangled collision of multiple vehicles including a smashed FedEx truck that left packages sprawled along the highway.

“It was kind of a chain-reaction crash,” Limani said.

FedEx did not provide any other details besides that they are cooperating with authorities. A message seeking comment was left Sunday with the bus company.

Limani would not identify those killed or say which vehicles they were traveling in.

“I haven’t personally witnessed a crash of this magnitude in 20 years,” Pennsylvania Turnpike spokesman Carl DeFebo told WTAE, calling it the worst accident in his decades-long tenure with the turnpike. “It’s horrible.”

Excela Health Frick Hospital in Mount Pleasant said it treated 31 victims, transferring a child and three adults to other facilities.

Hospitals brought in teams of social workers and psychologists to deal with the mental trauma, said Mark Rubino, president of Forbes Hospital, which treated 11 victims.

“The people coming in were not only physically injured but they were traumatized from a mental standpoint as well,” he said. Most were covered in diesel fuel when they arrived. The hospital treated fractured bones, brain bleeds, contusions, abrasions and spinal injuries.

The victims included students and people returning from visiting family in New York City. Many traveling on the bus were from outside the United States, Limani said, some of whom do not speak English and who lost their luggage and passports in the wreckage.

The Tribune-Review reported Leticia Moreta arrived at a hospital about 11:30 a.m. to pick up her children — Jorge Moreta, 24, and Melanie Moreta, 16 — who were on the bus.

She said her children, returning from visiting their father in New York, were in stable condition.

“I was devastated,” she said.

Exactly what caused the crash remains unknown, and Limani said it could take weeks or months to determine. The National Transportation Safety Board dispatched a team to investigate.

Officials said it was too early to determine if weather was a factor in the crash.

Angela Maynard, a tractor-trailer driver from Kentucky, said the roads were wet from snow but not especially icy. Maynard was traveling eastbound on the turnpike when she came upon the crash site and called 911.

“It was horrible,” she told The Tribune-Review. She saw lots of smoke but no fire. She and her co-driver found one person trapped in their truck and another lying on the ground.

“I tried to keep him occupied, keep talking, until medical help arrived,” Maynard said. “He was in bad shape. He was floating in and out of consciousness.”

The crash left families terrified and scrambling.

“I was crying,” said Omeil Ellis, whose two brothers were on the bus. “I was like crazy crying. I’m still hurt.”

Ellis, from Irvington, New Jersey, told The Tribune-Review that his brothers were traveling to Ohio for work. He was planning to meet them a few days later. But both of his brothers, one of them 39 years old and one 17, were sent to hospitals.

“I’m just weak right now,” he said.

…

The Golden Globes are famously unpredictable, but a few sure things seem to be in store for Sunday’s awards: Streaming services will play a starring role; five-time host Ricky Gervais will snicker at his own jokes; and Brad Pitt is all but assured of taking home an award.

Plenty of question marks remain for the 77th Golden Globe Awards, though. Will Jennifer Lopez score her first Globe? Who will win best song in the face-off between Beyoncé, Taylor Swift and Elton John? Just how many “Cats” jokes are too many?

Stars began arriving Sunday at the Beverly Hilton in Beverly Hills, California, ahead of the ceremony, which is due to start at 8 p.m. EST and be broadcast live on NBC. Among the standouts on the red carpet was, predictably, Billy Porter. The “Pose” star, who made such an impression at last year’s Oscars, arrived in a gleaming white suit with a long feather train that needed an assistant to carry it.

Whatever the cat drags in Sunday, the Golden Globes — Hollywood’s most freewheeling televised award show — should be entertaining. But they also might be unusually influential.

The roughly 90 voting members of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association have traditionally had little in common with the nearly 9,000 industry professionals that make up the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. The HFPA is known for calculatingly packing its show with as much star power as possible, occasionally rewarding even the likes of “The Tourist” and “Burlesque.”

But the condensed time frame of this year’s award season brings the Globes and the Academy Awards closer. Balloting for Oscar nominations began Thursday and ballots are due on Tuesday. Voters will be watching.

Netflix comes into the Globes with a commanding 34 nods — 17 in film categories and 17 in television categories. Noah Baumbach’s “Marriage Story” leads all movies with six nominations, including best film, drama. Martin Scorsese’s “The Irishman,” with five, is up for the same category. The box-office smash “Joker” may be their stiffest competition.

The path is more certain for Quentin Tarantino’s “Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood,” which is competing in the comedy or musical category. It could easily take home more trophies than any other movie, with possible wins for Pitt, Leonardo DiCaprio — a 12-time Globes nominee and three-time winner — and Tarantino’s script. Tarantino is also up for best director, though he faces formidable competition in Scorsese and “Parasite” filmmaker Bong Joon Ho.

The dearth of nominations for female filmmakers has stoked more backlash than anything else at this year’s Globes. Only men were nominated for best director (just five women have ever been nominated in the category), and none of the 10 films up for best picture was directed by a woman, either.

Time’s Up, the activist group that debuted at the black-clad 2018 Globes, has been highly critical of the HFPA for the omission, calling it “unacceptable.”

Last year, eventual Oscar best picture winner “Green Book” took best comedy, while “Bohemian Rhapsody” unexpectedly won best drama. This year, one of the likely best picture nominees at the Academy Awards wasn’t eligible. Despite being an organization of foreign journalists, the HFPA doesn’t include foreign films in its top categories, thus ruling out the South Korean sensation “Parasite.”

On the TV side, series like “Fleabag,” “The Crown,” “Succession” and “Chernobyl” are among the favorites. The recently launched Apple TV Plus also joins its first major awards show with “The Morning Show,” including nominations for both Jennifer Aniston and Reese Witherspoon.

The show will be watchable beyond the traditional NBC broadcast. With a cable or satellite TV login, the three-hour show can be streamed on NBC.com or on Hulu (with live TV), YouTube TV, Sling TV or PlayStation Vue. The official red carpet will be streamed on Facebook, beginning at 6 p.m. EST.

Last year’s telecast, hosted by Andy Samberg and Sandra Oh, held steady in TV ratings, averaging 18.6 million viewers. Along with the returning Gervais, scheduled presenters include Tiffany Haddish, Will Ferrell and last year’s best actress winner, Glenn Close.

Tom Hanks, also a nominee for his supporting turn as Fred Rogers in “A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood,” will receive the Cecil B. DeMille lifetime achievement award. The Carol Burnett Award, a similar honorary award given for television accomplishment, will go to Ellen DeGeneres.

…

 The leader of the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah said the U.S. military in the Middle East “will pay the price” in response to the death of a powerful Iranian commander in a U.S. strike.

During a televised speech on Sunday marking the death of Gen. Qassem Soleimani and several Iranian-backed Iraqi militia leaders on Friday in a U.S. drone-launched missile that targeted his convoy in the Iraqi capital, Baghdad, Hassan Nasrallah said responding to the killing of Soleimani was also the responsibility of Iran’s allies in the region.

“When the coffins of American soldiers and officers begin to be transported… to the United States, [U.S. President Donald] Trump and his administration will realize that they have really lost the region and will lose the [2020 U.S. presidential] elections” Nasrallah added.

The militant leader noted that U.S. civilians in the region “should not be touched.”

The Shi’ite Lebanese group is a close ally of Iran, receiving financial and military support from Tehran.

Iranian leaders, including Supreme leader Ali Khamenei, have vowed a “crushing response” to the killing of Soleimani who led Iran’s elite Quds Force.

Other Iranian-backed militia leaders in Iraq and Yemen have also pledged to retaliate against Soleimani’s death.

Potential attacks on Israel?

Considering Nasrallah’s speech on Sunday, experts said Hezbollah has a wide set of options that it could use for vengeance against the U.S. and its interests in Lebanon, Israel and the broader region.

Hezbollah “has a rocket arsenal of over a hundred and thirty rockets and mortars and a history of conducting attacks both against the U.S. and other targets within Lebanon and elsewhere,” said Thomas Abi-Hanna, a global security analyst at  Stratfor, an intelligence firm based in Austin, Texas.

“Potential attacks against U.S. interests, diplomatic personnel and others in Lebanon are one potential threat they could pose,” Abi-Hanna told VOA, adding that Hezbollah could also choose to launch attacks against neighboring Israel.

“Given the group’s animosity towards Israel and Israel’s close alliance with the U.S., they could attempt to strike either American or Israeli targets within Israel using that same set of rockets,” he said.  

Since the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah, the two sides occasionally have exchanged attacks. In the wake of Syria’s civil war, Israel has also hit Hezbollah targets inside Syria, where the Lebanese group has been fighting on the side of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime.

On Saturday, Gholamali Abuhamzeh, a senior commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), said Iran has identified 35 U.S. targets across the Middle East, including in Israel, which could potentially be attacked by Tehran and its proxy forces.

But Israeli security analyst Eli Nisan told the U.S.-funded Alhurra TV Sunday that Israel has taken all precautionary measures in this regard.

“Israeli intelligence and air force are ready to defend the country and will respond to any assault from Iran, Hezbollah or [the Palestinian] Islamic Jihad,” he said.  

Lebanon at risk

Other experts said that Nasrallah’s threats could be seen as a “declaration of war” against the United States and its allies.

“Using such a language by the head of the Hezbollah militia puts Lebanon at stake,” Lebanese affairs analyst Luqman Selim told Alhurra Sunday.

“What Nasrallah is doing is basically throwing Lebanon’s people and its institutions into an unpredictable labyrinth,” Selim said, noting that “Hezbollah is a non-state actor and its actions are not sanctioned by the will of the Lebanese people.”

Hezbollah was designated by the U.S. State Department as a Foreign Terrorist Organization in 1997.

Ezel Sahinkaya contributed to this story from Washington.

…

Thousands of people rallied Sunday in Pakistan’s largest city of Karachi and clashed with police while trying to force their way toward the tightly guarded American consulate to denounce the killing of Iranian commander Qasim Soleimani.

An American airstrike on Friday eliminated Soleimani in the Iraqi capital of Baghdad, dangerously escalating Tehran’s tensions with Washington. Iran has vowed to avenge the death of its general.

Pakistani televisions aired footages of Sunday’s rally of mostly Shi’ite Muslims, including women and children, chanting “Death to America” and “Death to Israel”. They carried images of Soleimani and Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the Iranian supreme leader.

Iran Backs Out of 2015 Nuclear Deal

Says it is no longer limiting uranium enrichment

Authorities in Karachi deployed additional police forces and blocked the road leading to the U.S. consulate, effectively preventing protesters from moving beyond the barricades. The rally dispersed later in the evening and there were no reports of casualties.

Rally leaders in their speeches urged the government not to allow the U.S. to use Pakistani soil against Iran. Scores of protesters also gathered in the national capital of Islamabad to condemn the U.S. strike before dispersing peacefully.

Pakistan Not To Take Sides

Pakistan clarified Sunday it would not take sides in the U.S.-Iran tensions over Soleimani’s killing.

The statement came two days after U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo spoke to Pakistani military chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa and shared details of the deadly strike.

The conversation, however, sparked media speculation Islamabad would side with Washington against Tehran if the tensions escalated into a wider conflict.

US, Iran Trade Threats Following Iran General’s Killing

President Trump threatens to attack 52 Iranian sites if Iran takes retaliates for Revolutionary Guard general’s death

Pakistani army spokesman Major-General Asif Ghafoor rejected the reports as “propaganda”, saying his country would play the role of a peacemaker and would not join any campaign that would threaten regional stability.

Separately, Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi said he spoke Sunday to counterparts in several regional countries, including Saudi Arabia and Iran to share Islamabad’s “deep concern” over the tensions in the Middle East.

“The foreign minister also reaffirmed that Pakistan would neither let its soil be used against any other state nor become part of any regional conflict,” an official statement quoted Qureshi as saying. He stressed the need for avoiding conflict and de-escalating the tensions.

Sunni-dominated Pakistan shares a more than 900 kilometer border with Shi’ite Iran. Both the neighbours maintain close political, economic and cultural ties as pro-Iran Shi’ites form an estimated 20% of Pakistan’s more than 200 million population.

…

VOA White House Senior Correspondent Patsy Widakuswara on Air Force One.

WHITE HOUSE — Iran says it is no longer limiting the number of centrifuges used to enrich uranium– a virtual abandonment of the 2015 nuclear deal.

“Iran’s nuclear program will have no limitations in production including enrichment capacity and percentage and number of enriched uranium and research and expansion,” a government statement said Sunday.

The move comes two days after a U.S. missile strike in Baghdad killed top Iranian general Qassem Soleimani, leading to threats of Iranian revenge.

Blowback: Iran Abandons Nuclear Limits After US Killing

The twin developments could bring Iran closer to building an atomic bomb and enable the Islamic State group to stage a comeback in Iraq, making the Middle East a far more dangerous and unstable place

But the Sunday statement did not make any explicit threats that Iran is seeking a nuclear weapon — something Iran has always denied it wants to do. Its statement said Iran will still cooperate with the International Atomic Agency.

Iran has been gradually backing down from a promise made in the 2015 deal since U.S. President Donald Trump pulled the U.S. out in 2018 and reimposed sanctions on Iran. The European signatories — Britain, France, and Germany — have been urging Iran not to pull out.

Iraq’s Parliament to US Military: ‘Get Out’ video player.

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Meanwhile, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is staunchly defending the drone attack outside Baghdad International Airport that killed Soleimani. But Pompeo has so far refuse to publicly share the evidence backing the administration’s claim that Soleimani was planning imminent attacks on U.S. forces and officials in the Middle East.

Pompeo said that letting Soleimani “continue plotting and planning his terror campaign” was a bigger risk than the drone strike posed.

Pompeo several times declined to reveal evidence of the threat the U.S. believed that Soleimani posed.

“There are simply things we cannot make public,” Pompeo told Fox News. “You’ve got to protect the sources providing the intelligence.”

Pompeo Staunchly Defends Drone Attack on Iranian General

But top US diplomat refuses to disclose evidence supporting claim that Qasem Soleimani posed an imminent threat to American forces and officials in the Mideast

On CNN, Pompeo said U.S. officials would continue to disclose information about the drone attack, but only “consistent with protecting our sources and methods and importantly our capacity to continue to understand what’s going on in presenting threats. You don’t want to risk that intelligence.”

Trump said Friday “We took action last night to stop a war. We did not take action to start a war…the Iranian regime’s aggression in the region, including the use of proxy fighters to destabilize its neighbors must end and it must end now.”

Trump claimed Soleimani was responsible for the deaths of thousands of Americans, Iraqis and Iranians, saying the longtime Iranian general “made the death of innocent people his sick passion” while helping to run a terror network that reached across the Middle East to Europe and the Americas.

Many Republican lawmakers back Trump’s order to kill Soleimani.

Democrats say there is no doubt Soleimani was rotten and a killer. But they say Trump’s action increases the threat of a U.S.-Iran war.

Sen. Chris Van Hollen told Fox, “We’re now headed very close to the precipice of war,” adding “you just can’t go around and kill” world figures the U.S. opposes. “The president is not entitled to take us to war” without congressional authorization.

US, Iran Trade Threats Following Iran General’s Killing

President Trump threatens to attack 52 Iranian sites if Iran takes retaliates for Revolutionary Guard general’s death

Trump doesn’t seem to agree.

He posted a tweet Sunday, saying his “media posts will serve as notification to the United States Congress that should Iran strike any U.S. person or target, the United States will quickly and fully strike back and perhaps in a disproportionate manner. Such legal notice is not required but is given nevertheless!”

Yale University law professor Oona Hathaway tells VOA the president cannot notify Congress of his intent to go to war by tweet and said he would be breaking several laws.

“Any time the president involves the armed forces into hostilities, he must — at a minimum — notify Congress within 48 hours,” she said.

Hathaway added that a president is obligated to consult with Congress before putting the armed forces into any hostilities. She said a “disproportionate” response would break international law, which says any action taken in self-defense must be proportionate to the threat.

“That any of this has to be said suggests just how insane this situation has become,” Hathaway said, wondering where are the lawyers from the White House, Pentagon, and State Department.

Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has vowed “severe revenge” against the killing of Soleimani. His top military adviser, Brigadier General Hossein Dehghan, told CNN, “The response for sure will be military and against military sites.”

Also Sunday, Iraq filed an official complaint with the United Nations secretary-general and the Security Council over the missile strike on Soleimani which was carried out on Iraqi soil.

The foreign ministry called the attack “a dangerous breach of Iraqi sovereignty and of the terms of the U.S. presence in Iraq.” It is asking the Security Council to condemn the action.

Pakistan Stress Neutrality, Big Rally Protests Killing of Soleimani

Pakistani televisions aired footages of Sunday’s rally of mostly Shi’ite Muslims, including women and children, chanting ‘Death to America” and “Death to Israel’

Also Sunday, at least two Katyusha rockets struck near the U.S. embassy inside Baghdad’s green zone, home to many foreign embassies. There are no reports of any casualties or damage.  

An Iranian-backed mob of protesters breached the security perimeters surrounding the embassy last week, breaking into a visitor’s reception area and burning a security post.

Kenneth Schwartz, Ken Bredemeier contributed to this report.

…

The body of Gen. Qassem Soleimani, who was killed in a U.S. drone strike, arrived Sunday in Iran to throngs of mourners, as President Donald Trump threatened to bomb 52 sites in the Islamic Republic if Tehran retaliates by attacking Americans

Soleimani’s death Friday in Iraq further heightens tensions 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 nuclear deal with world powers, an accord likely to further unravel as Tehran is expected to announce as early as Sunday it will break another set of limits.

Iran has promised “harsh revenge.” Already, a series of rockets launched in Baghdad late Saturday 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.”

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….

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 4, 2020

….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. The USA wants no more threats!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 4, 2020

Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, campaigning in Iowa, questioned whether Trump was acting alone or with support of allies. “We have no idea – I have no idea – whether he has any plan at all,” the former vice president told reporters Saturday night. “But when he makes statements like that, it just seems to me to be he’s going off on a tweet storm on his own, and it’s incredibly dangerous and irresponsible.”

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, according to the state-run IRNA news agency. An honor guard stood by early Sunday as mourners carried the flag-draped coffins of Soleimani and other Guard members off the tarmac.

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 also plan to take Soleimani’s body to Mashhad later Sunday, as well as Tehran and Qom on Monday for public mourning processions, then onto his hometown of Kerman for burial Tuesday.

Thousands March in Baghdad to Mourn Death of Iran’s Top Military General

White House formally notifies Congress of drone strike that killed Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani, senior administration official says

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. All eyes were on Iraq, where America and Iran have competed for influence since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion.

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 militia, 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.

Iraq’s government, which is closely allied with Iran, condemned the airstrike that killed Soleimani, calling it an attack on its national sovereignty. Parliament is meeting for an emergency session Sunday, and the 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.

Also Saturday, NATO temporarily suspended all training activities in Iraq due to safety concerns, Canadian Defense Minister Harjit Sajjan said.

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.

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.

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