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Outrage in Iran After Killing of Suleimani: Here’s What You Need to Know

Iran said it would essentially abandon its obligations under a land mark nuclear deal, and the Iraqi Parliament voted to expel American troops.

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A rally in Tehran on Sunday to mourn the death of Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani.Credit...Arash Khamooshi for The New York Times
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Listen to ‘The Daily’: Why Iran Is in Mourning

“Knowing General Suleimani was out there made me feel safer,” said a student about the commander killed in an American drone strike. “He was like a security umbrella above our country.”
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Listen to ‘The Daily’: Why Iran Is in Mourning

Hosted by Michael Barbaro; produced by Austin Mitchell and Jonathan Wolfe; with help from Neena Pathak and Sydney Harper; and edited by Lisa Chow, Paige Cowett and Dave Shaw

“Knowing General Suleimani was out there made me feel safer,” said a student about the commander killed in an American drone strike. “He was like a security umbrella above our country.”

michael barbaro

From The New York Times, I’m Michael Barbaro. This is “The Daily.”

Today: In the streets of Tehran, Iranians are mourning the loss of General Qassim Suleimani. My colleague Farnaz Fassihi on what they feel they’ve lost.

It’s Tuesday, January 7.

archived recording

[CHANTING]

farnaz fassihi

Monday morning was the start of the official state funeral for General Qassim Suleimani.

archived recording

[SINGING]

farnaz fassihi

By 8:00 a.m., there were millions of people out in downtown Tehran. He was being celebrated as a national hero, but also as a religious martyr and a saint.

archived recording

[SINGING AND DRUMMING]

farnaz fassihi

There were families. There were men, women, children. They had the symbolic Shia ritual symbols out — feathers, swords, drums, music, eulogies, songs.

archived recording

[CHANTING]

farnaz fassihi

And the crowd also had a very anti-American and defiant mood. People were sad, but they were also very angry, and we heard a lot of “revenge, revenge,” and “no more negotiations with the U.S., it’s time for battle,” chanted by the crowd.

archived recording (ayatollah ali khamenei)

[SPEAKING]

farnaz fassihi

Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, recited the Muslim prayer of the dead on General Suleimani’s coffin.

archived recording (ayatollah ali khamenei)

[SPEAKING]

farnaz fassihi

In the middle of the prayer, several times he paused and openly cried.

archived recording (ayatollah ali khamenei)

[SPEAKING] [CROWD MOANING]

farnaz fassihi

And the crowd also wept very loudly with him. As a reporter who’s covered Iran for over 25 years, what struck me was that the people who had attended were not just supporters of the regime, but a lot of people who were generally very critical of the regime.

michael barbaro

Hmm.

farnaz fassihi

To be clear, there are plenty of Iranians who did not love or respect General Suleimani. But there were activists, there were opposition figures who had been jailed by the regime who attended. And when I asked them, why are you there? Why are you going? The response was, General Suleimani protected our national security. He transcended politics. He was a national hero. And I was talking to some young people who had attended his funeral, and I spoke to a 22-year-old young man, a university student, and I asked him, why are you at the funeral? And he said, knowing General Suleimani was out there made me feel safer. He was like a security umbrella above our country. And that’s a sentiment that I heard over and over.

michael barbaro

You know, what you’re describing feels like the kind of unified national outpouring that is reserved for a small handful of figures in any country, right? I mean, a beloved president, a civil rights leader like Martin Luther King in the United States, not for what our colleagues have described as a general who specializes in covert operations in Iran.

farnaz fassihi

I think it’s difficult for most people in the United States and outside of Iran, and perhaps the region, to grasp the unique place and role that General Suleimani played in Iran and in regional politics. He was singlehandedly the most revered and influential character in Iran.

michael barbaro

So how did Suleimani cultivate that role? How did he make Iranians feel that way? Where does that story start?

farnaz fassihi

In many ways, General Suleimani’s story begins with the story of Iran’s revolution in 1979.

[music]

farnaz fassihi

He was a young man working construction jobs in the small city of Kerman in the southwest, from a low-income family.

michael barbaro

Mm-hmm.

farnaz fassihi

His education was high school diploma level, and he got swept up in the revolution, in the promise of Islam becoming the foundation of a government, and of promises to empower the oppressed and low-income class in Iran, which had been neglected and sidelined under the pro-Western monarchy of the shah. So General Suleimani gets a job at the local water plant and volunteers for the local chapter of the Revolutionary Guards, and quickly rises up and shows a lot of promise as a military man. When the war with Iraq happened in the 1980s, he was a commander for eight years. And after the war ended, he was named the commander of the Quds Forces. And that was really the beginning of the Quds Forces, and the Islamic Republic’s ambition to create a paramilitary in the region, and to kind of export the idea of an Islamic revolution of Shia dominance outside of the borders of Iran.

michael barbaro

And why does Iran, and someone like Suleimani, want to export this revolution?

farnaz fassihi

The Islamic Republic theocracy was the first time that a Shia government had come to power in the Middle East. The Islamic faith is divided along Sunnis and Shias, and the division and rivalry go back all the way to the early days of Islam and the succession of Prophet Muhammad. And Shias have always been a minority in the faith. With Saudi Arabia sort of as the custodian of the Sunni faith, Iran has, for centuries, wanted to establish itself as the protector of the minority Shias. And the theocracy of the Islamic Republic gave them the foundation and the structure to do that. And as soon as they had established their government in power in the country, they started looking externally. And General Suleimani was pivotal in expanding the ambitions of Iran’s military and political apparatus in the Middle East.

michael barbaro

And how exactly does he do that?

farnaz fassihi

So General Suleimani was instrumental in elevating Iran’s strategy in the region through the proxy militia groups that it had created. And he started in Lebanon, where Iran had already created two Shia militia groups, Amal al-Islami and Hezbollah, and he helped them in their fight with Israeli soldiers that were occupying Lebanon, and later on in the battles that Hezbollah and Lebanon fought. General Suleimani also becomes very involved with Palestinian militant groups — Hamas, Islamic Jihad — who also see an alliance between their ideologies and Islamic Republic of Iran.

michael barbaro

And when you say that Suleimani becomes involved in these groups, what does that actually mean? What is he doing?

farnaz fassihi

He helps them come up with battlefield plans, and he dispatches his underlings to go and train and fund and form these groups, providing them with weapons, providing them with money, and providing them with strategy. And he gains this reputation of being the shadow commander, the man who’s everywhere but nowhere. If General Suleimani is present on the ground, then Iran is present.

michael barbaro

So under Suleimani, Iran is making itself felt across the Middle East through these relationships to these militias. Does that strategy succeed?

farnaz fassihi

Iran’s strategy succeeds, but it’s limited to the shores of the Mediterranean with Lebanon and the Palestinian territories. But that changes in 2003 with the United States invasion of Iraq.

[music]

michael barbaro

We’ll be right back.

archived recording

U.S. warships and planes launched the opening salvo of Operation Iraqi Freedom. The attack came in waves —

michael barbaro

So Farnaz, how exactly did the U.S. invasion of Iraq provide an opportunity for Suleimani and for this strategy that he’s pursuing for Iran?

farnaz fassihi

Until the U.S. invasion of Iraq, the country was ruled by Saddam Hussein and Sunnis, and Shias who were aligned to Iran were marginalized. When the United States toppled Saddam Hussein, Shias rose to power, and many of these Shia leaders and political and religious figures had very close ties to Iran. And Iran really seized that opportunity. It used these contacts and networks and relationships to gain influence and penetrate Iraqi society. And General Suleimani once again becomes the pivotal character in helping realize this strategy and this aspiration.

michael barbaro

So an unintended consequence of America invading Iraq is that it ends up empowering Iran.

farnaz fassihi

When I was living and working in Iraq in those early days after the invasion, most of the Sunni Iraqis that we would meet and interview would say that the U.S. invasion delivered Iraq on a golden platter to Iran.

michael barbaro

Wow. So what does Suleimani do with this opening that he sees in Iraq?

farnaz fassihi

General Suleimani uses the opening to further expand Iran’s influence in Iraq and in the region. He helps create Shia militia. He recruits allies, a network of politicians, religious men and militant groups who were loyal to Iran’s ambitions in Iraq. The Shia militia that he helped create were also responsible for attacks on U.S. soldiers, for the killing of U.S. soldiers, and for civilian deaths.

When the Civil War started in Syria in 2011, Iran vowed to keep President Bashar al-Assad in power. Mr. Assad and his constituents are an offshoot of Shia Islam, and religiously and politically aligned with Iran. This is where Iraq comes in. Because of the relationships and networks and influence that General Suleimani had in Iraq, he was able to use Iraq by land and by air to funnel support for Syria’s war. Weapons, missiles, even soldiers that were trained in Iran were shipped to Syria by way of Iraq.

michael barbaro

So Suleimani’s strategy in Iraq — it doesn’t just fend off the Americans who have invaded there. It means that Iran and Suleimani could use Iraq to assist allies like Assad in Syria and in all these other battles throughout the region.

farnaz fassihi

Exactly. Iraq becomes a geographic extension of Iran and its interests in the region. And by the time ISIS takes over parts of Syria in Idlib and parts of Iraq in Mosul, the Iraqi government and even the Americans were at wit’s end on what to do to battle this growing threat of ISIS.

michael barbaro

So what does the rise of ISIS mean for Iran, and what does that mean for Iranian influence and for Suleimani’s role?

farnaz fassihi

The rise of ISIS was a threat to Iran. It was an existential threat to the Shia government of Iran, because ISIS represented the most extreme version of Sunni faith. And again, General Suleimani mobilizes. He goes to Iraq and he repeats a true and proven formula once again by recruiting volunteers, the instrumental ground force in helping the United States and Iraq’s army to battle ISIS. Therefore, Mr. Suleimani, although he’s seen as a foe of the United States, in the battle of ISIS actually becomes a default ally. For General Suleimani, the rise of ISIS was a turning point. He went from being a commander in the shadows, a mystery figure, to being a household name.

michael barbaro

Hmm. And why is he suddenly a public figure because of ISIS?

farnaz fassihi

Because Iran wanted to counter ISIS’s propaganda machinery.

archived recording 1

ISIS is using its cash and media-savvy Western militants to recruit and radicalize.

archived recording 2

The branded content. They’re mixing graphics, moving images, music, chants, all the —

archived recording 3

— cataloging and posting in near real time their war crimes.

farnaz fassihi

They utilize social media and Twitter and Facebook to recruit, to spread their propaganda to target their messaging.

archived recording

And this is a “mujatweet,” a short, promotional video which shows a softer side of jihad. Here, a Belgian hands out ice cream to excited Syrian children.

farnaz fassihi

And they create a personality around their leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the same way that Al Qaeda had created a personality around Bin Laden. So in response to ISIS’s very successful propaganda campaign, Iran decides to turn General Suleimani into the public face of the so-called resistance, and somebody that Shias could love and emulate and respect.

archived recording

Enter Qassim Suleimani.

Here he is, celebrating gun in hand.

farnaz fassihi

His pictures began appearing in public in battlegrounds, videos of him visiting soldiers unannounced.

archived recording

He’s been up and down the country in the North, in the South, in the capital, checking up on the defenses, mobilizing the Shia militias, making sure that the Iraqi states are able to confront the threat from ISIS.

farnaz fassihi

Videos of him reciting poetry, saying that he wants to become a martyr, the highest honor in Islam, and join his friends.

archived recording

General Suleimani is increasingly being elevated and recognized as a key player on the world stage as Iranian influence in the region grows.

farnaz fassihi

So by 2014, Mr. Suleimani is so well-known that his pictures are being printed on T-shirts, and his posters are sold in shops in Damascus and Beirut and Tehran.

michael barbaro

Wow.

farnaz fassihi

And that summer, his mother passed away, and the funeral of his mother in Tehran became the who’s who event of every militant group in the Middle East. From the head of Hamas, to Islamic Jihad, to senior members of Hezbollah, all showed up to pay respects to the general that they saw as the patron of their cause and movement.

michael barbaro

Hmm. So this is vivid evidence that he is very much the source of power in the Middle East — that all these groups owe him. They’re literally showing up at his door.

farnaz fassihi

It was like watching a king hold court. And that was really the first public glimpse that we got of his status regionally, and what he means to these groups.

michael barbaro

So at this point in 2014, how is Suleimani viewed by the U.S.? I’m struck that all of these figures and groups that you’re describing as turning out to pay respects to Suleimani’s mother at this funeral, they are all pretty much mortal foes of the U.S.

farnaz fassihi

So the U.S. was watching him, but not really taking action. And that was really in line with the previous administration’s policies of engagement with Iran, and not escalating confrontation. That changed with the election of Donald Trump as president.

michael barbaro

Right, and the withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal that President Trump ordered.

farnaz fassihi

Yes. Since the withdrawal of the Iran nuclear deal by the U.S., Iran and the U.S. have been on a collision path, increasingly taking provocative actions and policies toward one another.

archived recording

The past 48 hours saw a dangerous escalation in the feud between Washington and Tehran.

farnaz fassihi

Culminating these past few weeks of violence in Iraq —

archived recording 1

An American contractor was killed on an Iraqi base.

archived recording (mark esper)

The Department of Defense took offensive actions by launching F-15 Strike Eagles against five targets.

archived recording

Protesters stormed the American Embassy, and the U.S. says Iran is responsible.

farnaz fassihi

— that ultimately led to the decision by President Trump to assassinate General Suleimani.

michael barbaro

Right. Because in the minds of U.S. officials, Suleimani is very much responsible for those actions.

farnaz fassihi

Exactly.

michael barbaro

And Farnaz, how much do you think that the very public role that Suleimani occupied, and that Iran created for him and wanted for him — how much do you think that that played a role in the Trump administration’s decision to take him out, the understanding of what it was he represented to Iran?

farnaz fassihi

I think the Trump administration may have not known what he represented to Iran.

michael barbaro

Hmm.

farnaz fassihi

I think that they miscalculated the level of admiration, perhaps, or nationalistic sentiment that we’ve seen pouring out of Iran. I think the White House probably thought that it was taking out a military commander, that it may not be very popular with ordinary Iranians, that there’s been a lot of discontent in November against the government, and maybe Iranians would support this decision. For sure, we have voices in Iran, outside and inside Iran, among Iranians, who think that taking Mr. Suleimani out is justified, and they didn’t like him, but what we’ve seen is that the U.S. has effectively turned General Suleimani into a martyr.

michael barbaro

So this response that we saw at the funeral on Monday — are you saying that the United States may not have expected this? Because it sounds like the U.S. understood one aspect of Suleimani’s role in Iran, as the leader of this military strategy, but perhaps they didn’t understand something that’s equally as important, which is what he meant in the hearts of Iranians.

farnaz fassihi

I think that’s absolutely right. And I think, you know, we have to remember Iran has been an island of stability in a region ablaze with terrorism and car bombs and beheadings and kidnappings and women being sold by ISIS. And Iranians have, like, watched the whole region unravel around them — refugees and displacement — for the past 20 years. And by and large, they credit General Suleimani for that. They say that they trusted him and respected him for protecting Iran, for keeping Iran safe. And I think the outpouring of emotion we see is related to that sentiment.

michael barbaro

Help me understand this idea, because the strategy that you have described over the past decade of violence and provocation that Suleimani oversaw and he came to personify, it doesn’t feel protective. Why did it feel that way to Iranians in a way that the U.S. might not have understood?

farnaz fassihi

You know, Michael, that’s a really good question, and it’s one that I’ve struggled to understand myself. This is a man who was responsible for a lot of violence and a lot of mayhem in the region, and a lot of activity that most Iranians may not agree with, that do not like. But because they felt that it gave them a buffer between their day-to-day lives inside Iran and the instability and violence happening all around the Middle East, they came to respect him and view him as a protector.

[music]

michael barbaro

What does Suleimani’s meaning to people in Iran — what does that mean for the response we should expect from the government there?

farnaz fassihi

The public momentum is building, and pressure is building, on Iran’s leadership to take action. At the funeral this morning, millions of people were out.

archived recording

[CHANTING]

farnaz fassihi

They were carrying the red flag of Shia Islam, which is a call to battle. They were chanting, “No to negotiations, no to a deal, only war with the United States.”

archived recording

[CHANTING]

farnaz fassihi

And the combination of the public’s defiant mood and calls for revenge, and the rhetoric we’re seeing from Iranian officials, increases the possibility that in the next few days or next few weeks, Iran will respond and retaliate. How it will do it, what it will do, we don’t know.

michael barbaro

Farnaz, thank you very much.

farnaz fassihi

Thank you so much for having me, Michael.

michael barbaro

The Times reports that Iran’s supreme leader has told advisors that the retaliation against the United States for General Suleimani’s death should be carried out openly by Iran’s military, not through proxies or militias. Such a direct reprisal would be a major departure from Iranian tradition, and highlights the desire by the supreme leader to honor Suleimani’s status and satisfy the mourners who have flooded the streets of Tehran.

We’ll be right back.

Here’s what else you need to know today. In a surprise statement on Monday, former National Security Adviser John Bolton, said he is willing to testify at President Trump’s impeachment trial if he is subpoenaed by the Senate. The announcement puts new pressure on Senate Republicans to call witnesses at the trial, something they have so far resisted doing. Bolton was blocked by the White House from testifying before House impeachment investigators, but is considered a vital witness in the case, because he has direct knowledge of Trump’s actions and conversations regarding Ukraine. And in Los Angeles on Monday, prosecutors charged Harvey Weinstein with sex crimes just hours after prosecutors in New York began a trial against Weinstein on similar charges. The allegations in Los Angeles are from two women who allege that Weinstein sexually assaulted them in hotel rooms in 2013. The latest charges mean that even if Weinstein is acquitted in New York, he will face a second trial in California.

That’s it for “The Daily.” I’m Michael Barbaro. See you tomorrow.

Iran’s government said it was no longer abiding by a commitment it made under the 2015 nuclear deal and it would not limit its enrichment of uranium.

The decision to lift all restrictions on the production of nuclear fuel meant the effective end of the nuclear deal, experts said, though Iran left open the possibility that it will return to the limits if sanctions are lifted.

“It’s finished. If there’s no limitation on production, then there is no deal,” said David Albright, president of the Institute for Science and International Security, a nonprofit in Washington.

The announcement came after Iran’s National Security Council held an emergency meeting on Sunday to discuss the country’s nuclear policy in the aftermath of Maj. Gen. Qassim Soleimani’s assassination.

The statement said: “The Islamic Republic of Iran will end its final limitations in the nuclear deal, meaning the limitation in the number of centrifuges. Therefore Iran’s nuclear program will have no limitations in production including enrichment capacity and percentage and number of enriched uranium and research and expansion.”

But the government said Iran would continue its cooperation with International Atomic Agency.

The announcement followed several steps by Iran to move away from the terms of the agreement, nearly two years after President Trump withdrew the United States from the deal. Since that renunciation, the Trump administration has imposed severe sanctions aimed at crippling Iran’s economy.

The nuclear agreement had ended many economic sanctions on Iran in return for its verifiable pledge to use nuclear power peacefully. The European parties to the deal, including Britain, France and Germany, had struggled to preserve the agreement amid rising tensions between Washington and Tehran.

Iran’s statement Sunday did not include details about its enrichment ambitions. And the country did not say it was expelling the inspectors who monitor its nuclear program. Iran’s foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, tweeted:

Mark Fitzpatrick, a nuclear expert on Iran and associate fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, wrote on Twitter that the announcement was “ambiguous,” with room for “both negotiation and escalation.”

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President Trump departing from Florida on Sunday.Credit...Eric Thayer for The New York Times

“War crime,” said Iran’s foreign minister.

“It doesn’t work that way,” replied President Trump.

Earlier in the day, the American president, taking to Twitter, had warned Iran against retaliating for the killing of General Soleimani. He said the United States had already picked out targets to hit in Iran if it did, including cultural sites.

“Like ISIS, Like Hitler, Like Genghis!” Iran’s information and telecommunications minister declared on Twitter. ”They all hate cultures. Trump is a terrorist in a suit."

The Iranian foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, said that “targeting cultural sites is a war crime.”

But on Sunday evening, aboard Air Force One on his way back from his holiday trip to Florida, Mr. Trump did not back down.

“They’re allowed to kill our people,” he said to reporters. “They’re allowed to torture and maim our people. They’re allowed to use roadside bombs and blow up our people. And we’re not allowed to touch their cultural site? It doesn’t work that way.”

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A photograph provided by the Iraqi prime minister’s press office showing the Iraqi Parliament in session in Baghdad on Sunday.Credit...Iraqi Prime Minister Press Office

Iraqi lawmakers voted 170-0 on Sunday in favor of expelling American troops from their country, just days after a United States drone strike killed the leader of Iran’s elite Quds Force on Iraqi soil.

The vote was not final and many lawmakers did not attend the session. But Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi drafted the language and submitted the bill to Parliament, leaving little doubt about his support.

The drone strike that killed the leader of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps Quds Force, Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani, at the Baghdad airport on Friday also killed Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the deputy head of the Iraqi Popular Mobilization Forces, a coalition of Iranian-backed militias.

The attack was viewed in Iraq as a violation of the nation’s sovereignty, and the country’s Foreign Ministry said on Sunday that it had summoned the American ambassador in Baghdad.

Iraq’s Parliament was divided over demands from angry citizens to expel American troops. Many of its 328 members, primarily Kurds and Sunnis, did not attend Sunday’s session and did not vote. In his speech to lawmakers, Mr. Mahdi laid out two possibilities: to either quickly end the presence of foreign forces in Iraq, or to set a timeline for that expulsion.

The measure approved by the Parliament did not include a timeline, and only instructed the government to end the presence of foreign forces in Iraq. Officials said no decision had been made about whether any American troops would be able to stay, or under what conditions.

Iranian officials reacted to the vote with congratulatory messages and said General Soleimani’s death had delivered a huge victory over the United States.

Hesameddin Ashena, a top adviser to President Hassan Rouhani, in a Twitter post, said: “Expanding friendship with our neighbors and domestic unity are the best gifts for protecting our national security. America and Israel are the only winners of a rift between neighbors.”

Asked about the vote on Sunday, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said that the United States would continue to battle the Islamic State. “It is the United States that is prepared to help the Iraqi people get what it is they deserve and continue our mission there to take down terrorism from ISIS and others in the region,” he said in an interview on the CBS program “Face the Nation.”

If American forces leave the country, European Union and coalition forces will likely have to follow, because they rely on the American logistics and intelligence resources to protect their forces and the civilians that work with them. NATO has already announced the suspension of its training mission for Iraqi forces.

From Israel to Saudi Arabia, the United States’ allies in the Middle East have long warned Washington about Iran’s campaigns in the region — many of them masterminded by General Suleimani.

But with scant exception, their response to his killing has been silence.

Iran has built close ties with the government of Syria and armed groups in Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Yemen. That puts many Iranian partners within firing range of American allies like Israel, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

For many of them, the wisest course of action over the weekend seemed to be to say nothing.

“Saudi Arabia and all the gulf countries are just quiet,” said Khalid al-Dakhil, a political sociologist in Saudi Arabia. “They don’t want to antagonize the Iranians, because the situation in the region is so delicate, so divided, so sensitive, that you don’t want to stir it up further.”

The spread of Iran’s network means that it could rely on allied forces to strike — for instance at Saudi oil facilities, just across the Persian Gulf — while giving Tehran a way to deny responsibility.

And many officials in the Middle East are concerned about the degree of support they can expect from Mr. Trump should they become targets of Iranian retaliation, cyberattack or sabotage. Prince Khalid bin Salman, the Saudi deputy defense minister, flew to Washington this weekend to meet with American officials.

In Iraq, pro-Iranian militias pose a powerful threat to groups that prefer the United States.

In Lebanon, American allies kept quiet to avoid Hezbollah, a major political party and the country’s strongest military force.

And even in Israel, celebrations were muted, with officials wanting to avoid any suggestion of involvement in the killing.

“The entire region is on edge, as we are in unchartered territory,” said Taufiq Rahim, a senior fellow at the foundation New America who works in the Persian Gulf. “There is no way to be ready for what comes next, because anything could be a target.”

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United States soldiers at a military base at an undisclosed location in northeastern Syria in November.Credit...Darko Bandic/Associated Press

The American-led coalition in Iraq and Syria said on Sunday that it was pausing its yearslong mission of attacking the Islamic State and training local forces in both countries as United States forces braced for retaliation from Iran over the killing of its top military commander.

A statement from the American command pointed to recent attacks on Iraqi and American bases, one of which killed an American contractor last month. “We have therefore paused these activities, subject to continuous review,” it said of the fight against ISIS.

After the killing last week of the commander, Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani — who was responsible for the deaths of hundreds of troops over the years — the approximately 5,200 troops in Iraq and several hundred in Syria are focused on fortifying their outposts.

The assassination of General Suleimani removed the leader of one of the Islamic State’s most effective opponents. He had been responsible for building up the alliance of Iran-backed militias that played a significant role in driving the militants out of their strongholds in Syria and Iraq.

Also on Sunday, Islamic State militants attacked Iraqi security forces near the northern city of Kirkuk, killing two Iraqi soldiers and injuring another, the Iraqi Joint Command said.

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President Trump also threatened on Twitter to hit Iran “harder than they have ever been hit before.”Credit...Eric Thayer for The New York Times

Echoing President Trump’s remarks the day before, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo warned on Sunday that the United States could attack Iran itself if leaders there took hostile actions against American interests in the aftermath of the drone strike that killed a top general.

“I’ve been part of the discussion and planning process — everything I’ve seen about how we will respond with great force and great vigor if the Iranian leadership makes a bad decision,” Mr. Pompeo said on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “We hope that they won’t, but when they do, America will respond.”

In appearances on five television news shows on Sunday morning, Mr. Pompeo underscored Mr. Trump’s message the previous day that the United States had chosen sites to attack within Iran if Tehran ordered assaults on American assets or citizens in retaliation for a drone strike that killed General Suleimani in Baghdad.

He tweeted on Saturday that the United States had pinpointed 52 targets in Iran if it retaliated for the killing, prompting Iran’s foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, to say on Twitter that “targeting cultural sites is a war crime.”

Mr. Zarif added, “whether kicking or screaming, end of U.S. malign presence in West Asia has begun.”

Mr. Trump said on Sunday that “media posts” would serve as notification to Congress about a potential strike.

Mr. Pompeo also blamed the 2015 nuclear deal for the rising hostilities. He told CNN that “this war kicked off” when the Obama administration entered into the agreement. Though Tehran had been abiding by the terms of the deal, Mr. Pompeo said, the agreement gave Iran “free rein” to expand its regional activities.

In protest over that latest threat, Iran on Sunday summoned the Swiss envoy representing American interests in Tehran, Reuters reported.

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The body of Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani was brought back to Iran. Mourners flooded the streets, weeping and holding up posters of the general, as his coffin moved through the crowds.CreditCredit...Mohammad Taghi/Tasnim News, via Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Hundreds of thousands of mourners poured into the streets of Iran to pay their respects to Maj. General Qassim Suleimani on Sunday, one day after joint funerals were held in Baghdad for the slain Quds Force leader and Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, a powerful militia leader in Iraq and a close adviser to the general.

Both men were killed by an American drone strike early Friday at Baghdad’s airport, inflaming tensions between Washington and Tehran and raising fears that more violence would follow.

President Trump said he had ordered the airstrikes not just as retaliation for past attacks on Americans, but also to prevent “imminent and sinister attacks” on more Americans. But Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and its president, Hassan Rouhani, both promised that the country would take “revenge” for the killing.

Iraq’s most influential Shiite religious leader, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, sent a letter of condolence to Iran’s supreme leader that praised General Soleimani for helping fight the Islamic State and stabilize Iraq over the past decade.

Iran’s regional reach was visible during the services in Baghdad, which were as close to a state ceremony in Iraq as any since the fall of Saddam Hussein. Many mourners were members of Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Forces, militias that came together to fight the Islamic State — and the most powerful of which are affiliated with Iran.

Tens of thousands of pro-Iranian fighters marched through Baghdad, waving flags and chanting that “revenge is coming” to the United States.

“The worst thing that happened to Iran in the recent months was not the killing of General Suleimani but the turning of the Iraqi Shia against Iran before he was killed,” said Abbas Kadhim, the head of the Iraq Initiative at the Atlantic Council, referring to recent protests against Iranian influence. “That was reversed by the killing of Suleimani.”

Mr. Kadhim said that while Iran could afford the loss of a general or a politician, they could not afford “the turning of the Shia in neighboring countries against them.”

“That’s why this show of support for Iran in the holy cities, in Lebanon and Iraq after the killing of Suleimani is a huge victory,” he said. “They regained the most important element of their strategy in the region, which is the support of local populations.”

Mr. al-Muhandis, one of Iran’s top lieutenants in Iraq, was accused of playing a role in embassy bombings in Kuwait in the 1980s and funneling weapons to pro-Iranian militias in the 2000s. Many Iraqis saw him as a hero for his role in the battle against the Islamic State.

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Hezbollah’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, during an address to supporters on Sunday.Credit...Anwar Amro/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

The leader of Hezbollah, the Islamist movement backed by Iran, warned in a speech Sunday that the killing of General Suleimani would only motivate Iran’s allies in the Middle East to strike harder against the United States and Israel.

“Assassinating General Suleimani means targeting the entire axis of resistance,” said the militant leader, Hassan Nasrallah, speaking via video feed at a memorial service. “The United States will leave our region humiliated. When U.S. troops leave the region in coffins, Washington will realize it has lost, and Trump will realize that he has lost the election.”

Mr. Nasrallah vowed to target American bases, soldiers and Marines — a response he called “retribution, a fair one” — but took care to add that he was “not talking about the American people at all.”

Hezbollah, a militia and political party based in Lebanon, is perhaps the most formidable of the network of proxy forces Iran has built up around the Middle East, which also includes pro-Iranian militias in Iraq.

The State Department has classified Hezbollah as a terrorist organization, and the militia has battled and skirmished repeatedly with Israel. It maintained close ties with General Suleimani, and was now mourning him as a hero over the weekend

Mr. Nasrallah said that he had met with the general on Wednesday in Beirut, where General Suleimani had stopped before flying to Baghdad. The group released what appeared to be a photo of the two men meeting.

On Sunday, Mr. Nasrallah said that the general’s death marked “the start of a new stage, not just for Iraq or Iran, but for the entire region” — a stage he warned would be awash in anti-American violence.

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An anti-war protest in New York on Saturday.Credit...Jeenah Moon for The New York Times

As the United States has escalated its conflict with Iran, many in the generation of Americans who have grown up since the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, have become alarmed by the prospect of being swept up in an extended conflict.

Over high school lunch tables, teenagers speak of World War III. When they get home, they tearfully ask their parents whether they could be drafted. Social media feeds have exploded with predictions of military action and wisecracking memes about end times.

With an all-volunteer military fighting the wars in Afghanistan and the Middle East that have been simmering since they were toddlers, many young men had grown used to thinking of the longstanding requirement that they register for the draft as a mere bureaucratic formality. “Now it’s like, what exactly did we sign up for?” said Adrian Flynn, a high school senior in New York who turned 18 in October.

And demonstrators took to the streets of cities across the United States over the weekend to protest the killing of an Iranian general and the possibility that it could lead to yet another war.

“Unless the people of the United States rise up and stop it, this war will engulf the whole region and could quickly turn into a global conflict of unpredictable scope and potentially the gravest consequences,” said a statement by the coalition behind the protests. That group included Act Now to Stop War and End Racism, an antiwar coalition, and Code Pink, an antiwar organization led by women.

More than 80 protests were organized, in places like Washington, Chicago, San Francisco, St. Louis, Miami and Philadelphia. Marchers in Times Square in New York chanted, “U.S. out of the Middle East.”

Organizers had begun calling for nationwide protests early last week, before the drone strike that killed General Suleimani. They had already been fearful of the possible effects of rising tensions between the United States and Iran in recent months.

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Asked in an interview with the BBC whether the killing was legal, Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab of Britain, right, said, “There is a right of self-defense.”Credit...Jeff Owers/Bbc, via Epa

Even as Western allies said they had been given no warning about the United States’ killing of General Suleimani, Britain’s foreign minister, Dominic Raab, said on Sunday that America had a right to self-defense in killing the Iranian military commander.

Asked in an interview with the BBC whether the killing was legal, Mr. Raab said, “There is a right of self-defense.”

“It was General Suleimani’s job description to engage proxies and militias,” Mr. Raab said, “to attack Western countries that were legitimately there.”

Describing General Suleimani as a “regional menace,” he said he did not agree that the killing was an act of war — a label that Iran’s United Nations ambassador used to describe the killing, and which analysts have said is applicable.

Mr. Raab said he had spoken to Iraq’s prime minister and president to urge a de-escalation of tensions in the region after the drone killing.

President Emmanuel Macron of France spoke by telephone with President Trump on Sunday, according to a statement from the French president’s office, and expressed solidarity with allies “in light of the attacks carried out in recent weeks against the coalition in Iraq,” his office said in the statement.

Mr. Macron also expressed concerns about “destabilizing activities of the Quds force under General Qassem Soleimani,” his office said, and urged Iran avoid “taking any measures that could lead to an escalation in the situation and destabilizing the region.”

In Germany, a government spokeswoman also expressed sympathy for the United States’ position. “The American action was a reaction to a series of military provocations for which Iran is responsible,” the spokeswoman, Ulrike Demmer, said at a news conference on Friday, according to Reuters.

“We also see with great concern Iran’s activities in the region,” she said, adding that Berlin would aim to de-escalate the tensions.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had criticized Europes response to the killing of General Suleimani, telling Fox News on Friday night that “the Europeans haven’t been as helpful as I wish that they could be.”

Reporting was contributed by Alissa J. Rubin, Ben Hubbard, Falih Hassan, Thomas Gibbons-Neff, Eric Schmitt, Vivian Yee, David D. Kirkpatrick, Edward Wong, Tess Felder, Yonette Joseph, Mariel Padilla and Maggie Haberman.

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