Doubts grow over US case for Suleimani assassination as Iran urges revenge

Huge crowds joined funeral processions for Qassem Suleimani in Baghdad and Tehran on Saturday as calls to avenge the Iranian general’s death mounted and the US case for ordering his assassination was increasingly called into question.

As the coffins of Suleimani and his close associate Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis were carried through the Iraqi capital, the ramifications of the killings were reverberating across a nervous region, where many believe the aftermath could spark a new era of bloodletting and instability. Two rockets crashed into Baghdad’s Green Zone on Saturday night, near the sprawling US embassy compound, which was attacked by Shia militia members in the days before Suleimani’s death.

Donald Trump’s decision to authorise the assassination also appeared to have driven a wedge between Washington and its allies, with the French president, Emmanuel Macron, telephoning Iraq’s acting prime minister to express support for the country’s sovereignty in an implicit rebuke of the strike, which was carried out without the knowledge of Iraqi leaders.

Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates also called for calm amid concerns that Suleimani’s death may shift the foundations of Washington’s relationships in the region. All three states are US allies and consider themselves to be possible arenas for Iranian retaliation.

While Trump continued to revel in his decision, tweeting on Saturday night that if Iran retaliated the US had identified 52 Iranian sites that would be targeted “very fast and very hard”, there were also fears in Europe and Britain that potential consequences for an already volatile global order had not been considered. The former MI6 chief Sir John Sawers described Suleimani’s assassination as an “act of war”.

The UK defence minister Ben Wallace said he had spoken to his US counterpart, Mark Esper, adding: “We urge all parties to engage to de-escalate the situation.” He said US forces in Iraq, who are there at the invitation of the Iraqi government, had been repeatedly attacked by Iranian-backed militia and that Suleimani had been at the heart of the use of proxies to undermine neighbouring sovereign nations and target Iran’s enemies. “Under international law the United States is entitled to defend itself against those posing an imminent threat to their citizens,” Wallace said.

The White House transmitted on Saturday evening its formal notification to Congress of Friday’s drone strike that killed Soleimani in Iraq, two senior congressional aides told Reuters.

Many Democrats have criticised Trump for failing to seek advance approval or to notify Congress of the attack.

The classified notification was sent under a US law requiring the administration to notify Congress within 48 hours of committing armed forces to military action or imminent actions.

Trump’s administration was expected to explain the circumstances, the authority under which the action was taken and the expected scope and duration of the military involvement. The White House did not immediately comment.

Nancy Pelosi, speaker of the House, said in a statement that the White House notification about the attack “prompts serious and urgent questions about the timing, manner and justification of the administration’s decision to engage in hostilities against Iran”.

She said the “highly unusual” decision to classify the entire document compounded her concerns and “suggests that the Congress and the American people are being left in the dark about our national security”.

On Saturday night, Boris Johnson had yet to respond to the strike. It is understood that Britain had no prior knowledge of it being authorised.

There were also concerns about what the killing could mean for bilateral ties between Washington and Baghdad, which have struggled to find common ground in the years since US troops withdrew from Iraq. Iraqi officials attending Suleimani’s funeral procession said they would now push for the exit of remaining US forces, who had returned to fight Islamic State – a move that would jeopardise global efforts to mop up the threat from the terror group.

As he wept over the coffin of Muhandis, the new leader of the Popular Mobilisation Units, Hadi Al-Amiri, said: “Be assured that the price for your pure blood is the exit of the American troops from Iraq to achieve full national sovereignty.” Iraq’s outgoing prime minister, Adel Abdul Mahdi, also joined the procession.

Suleimani’s body was taken to the Kadhimiya shrine in the north of the city, followed by the Shia shrine city of Najaf. It was then flown to the city of Ahvaz in south-west Iran on Sunday, the official IRIB news agency reported. IRIB posted a video clip of a coffin wrapped in an Iranian flag being unloaded from a plane as a military band played. Thousands of mourners dressed in black marched through Ahvaz, in live footage aired on state TV.

It was expected that the body will be taken to Tehran and finally to his home town, Kerman, on Tuesday.

In Baghdad, Shia militia leaders and Iraqi dignitaries stood under the banners of groups that were loyal to Suleimani through his long and influential presence in Iraq, in which he projected Iran’s interests through a mix of hard-nosed security, intelligence and coercion. Calls for revenge resounded through the mourners, some of whom regarded Suleimani and Muhandis as historical messianic figures.

Elsewhere in the Middle East, reactions were in sharp contrast. In northern Syria, where Suleimani proved pivotal in saving Bashar al-Assad from defeat, there were celebrations. Sweets were handed out in some towns.

“This general was the devil himself,” said Sobhih Mustafa, in the town of Maarat al-Numan. “His legacy will be written in blood.”

Mourners in the city of Karbala, Iraq, carry the coffins of Iraqi paramilitary chief Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis and Iranian military commander Qassem Suleimani.

As the four-day burial ritual was getting under way, the US justification behind Suleimani’s killing, which centred on there being an “imminent attack” which he had directed, was challenged in some quarters.

The New York Times correspondent Rukmini Callimachi tweeted that two sources privy to the information, held by US intelligence officials, described the case as “razor thin”. Her tweets also detail a scramble to discover Suleimani’s whereabouts once the decision to kill him was made.

In May, the Guardian reported that Suleimani had instructed loyal forces in the region to “prepare for proxy war”. That order was intercepted by GCHQ and led to urgent messages being sent to Baghdad and Iran.

Meanwhile, Iran claimed that the US had sent a note to Tehran through the Swiss embassy, which acts as an intermediary between the two foes, calling for a “proportional response” to the killing of Suleimani. “The Swiss, who represent US interests [in Iran], brought a very unwise message from the Americans, which received a firm response,” the foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, said on TV. “The Americans made a wrong move and are now worried about its consequences.”

The deputy commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps , Brigadier General Ali Fadavi, said the US “resorted to such means as diplomacy this morning [Friday] and even told us ‘if you want to take revenge, do it in a way that’s proportional to what we did’.”

“But they cannot decide anything [for us],” Fadavi added, according to the Iranian English-language news site Iran Front Page. “That will take place at the most opportune time and in the best manner possible.

“Soon we will see that the Americans will not be there in the region,” he said.