China reports new virus cases, raising concern globally before key holiday - CNBC

Medical staff members carry a patient into the Jinyintan hospital, where patients infected by a mysterious SARS-like virus are being treated, in Wuhan in China's central Hubei province on January 18, 2020.

STR

China reported four more cases of pneumonia believed to be caused by a new coronavirus strain, causing rising concern globally that a disease health officials do not yet fully understand could spread during a key holiday period.

The new virus, which was discovered in the central Chinese city of Wuhan, belongs in the same large family of coronaviruses that includes Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), which killed nearly 800 people globally during a 2002/03 outbreak that also started in China.

Though experts say the new virus does not appear to be as lethal as SARS, there is little known about its origins and how easily it can spread. Thailand and Japan have confirmed new cases of the virus earlier this week, stoking worries globally as many of the 1.4 billion Chinese people will travel abroad during the Lunar New Year holidays that begin next week.

Authorities around the world including in the United States, Thailand and South Korea have stepped up monitoring of travellers from Wuhan as part of their efforts to prevent the disease from spreading.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has also warned that a wider outbreak is possible, though it has advised against any travel restrictions for China.

The Wuhan Municipal Health Commission (WMHC) said on Saturday the four new individuals diagnosed with the new virus are in stable condition, adding it has confirmed 45 cases in the city as of Thursday. A day earlier, the commission confirmed the death of a second patient.

Nearly 50 people are now known to have been infected globally, but all of them either live in Wuhan or have travelled to the city.

A report published by the London Imperial College's MRC Centre for Global Infectious Disease Analysis said there are likely "substantially more cases" of the new coronavirus than currently announced by Wuhan authorities: its base scenario estimate is that there would be 1,723 cases showing onset of related symptoms by Jan. 12.

The WMHC referred Reuters queries about the report to the National Health Commission (NHC) and the Hubei provincial government, but the NHC and the Hubei government did not immediately respond to Reuters requests for comment. Wuhan is the capital of Hubei province.

Screening

U.S. authorities have said they would start screening at three airports to detect travellers arriving via direct or connecting flights from Wuhan who may have symptoms of the new virus.

In Asia, authorities in Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan and Thailand have stepped up monitoring of passengers from Wuhan at airports. Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines say they have strengthened screening at all points of entry in response to the outbreak, as well.

But Alexandra Phelan, global health legal expert at Georgetown University's Center for Global Health Science and Security, said such screening may be insufficient in preventing the virus from spreading as its symptoms, which include fever, cough and difficulty in breathing, are "quite general".

"There are likely to be many individuals with matching symptoms due to an illness that is not 2019-nCoV," Phelan said, referring to the new virus.

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2020-01-18 11:34:00Z
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All eyes on Berlin as Libya rivals, world powers set for talks - Al Jazeera English

Berlin, Germany - The two leading parties in Libya's war, as well as representatives from their foreign backers and other nations, are expected to gather in Germany on Sunday for a highly-anticipated summit aimed at ending nine months of conflict in the North African country.

Libyan Prime Minister Fayez al-Sarraj, head of the United Nations-recognised Government of National Accord (GNA), and Khalifa Haftar, commander of the self-styled Libyan National Army (LNA), are due to join discussions with Russia, Turkey, France, Italy, the United States and others on ending the war, which has raged since Haftar's forces began an advance on the capital, Tripoli, in April last year.

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The warring sides earlier this month agreed to a ceasefire brokered by Russia and Turkey, though Haftar dramatically departed talks in Moscow on January 12 before signing the formalised agreement with al-Sarraj.

Sunday's Berlin summit is the latest attempt to restore stability and peace to Libya, which has been splintered between competing factions and militias since former leader Muammar Gaddafi was overthrown and killed during a NATO-supported uprising in 2011.

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The deeply divided country currently has two rival administrations: The Tripoli-based GNA and another allied with Haftar in the eastern city of Tobruk.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has said that enforcing a UN arms embargo on Libya will be a priority at the summit. The host nation has been pushing to ensure that political dialogue, rather than further violence, will resolve the conflict - a stance sometimes at odds with the interests of other European Union members such as France and Italy, which have shown support for Haftar, whose eastern-based forces have been accused of indiscriminately bombing civilians.

"What will be signed up to in Berlin has already been agreed upon, including the embargo, the principles of a ceasefire and what the peace process that follows it must entail," Tarek Megerisi, policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, told Al Jazeera.

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"It will be kind of a general freeze-frame of current countries, what level of influence they have and [what] they've been able to impart on the communique that will be signed up to.

"But if previous agreements are anything to go by, I don't think anybody's really intending to stick to what they agree to in Berlin."

International support

The conflict has drawn in several countries from the Middle East and beyond, with Turkey supporting the GNA and Russia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Egypt backing Haftar's LNA.

Recent months have seen an increase in military involvement from foreign powers, with mercenaries from Russia's Wagner Group - a paramilitary organisation - reportedly joining the LNA on the front lines and the UAE bolstering air support for Haftar's forces, who are positioned in the suburbs of Tripoli but have been unable to capture the city.

Since signing in November two separate deals with the GNA (one on security and military cooperation and another on maritime boundaries in the eastern Mediterranean), Turkey has strengthened its presence in western Libya, with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan recently confirming that Turkey had sent troops into the country. 

"[These military] escalations ... are a by-product of what's going on in Berlin," said Megerisi, adding that increasing awareness that the Berlin summit was imminent prompted all sides to seek to strengthen their positions on the ground before formal commitments were made in Germany.

"I think that both sides are ready to continue fighting. They just don't know when it's going to start," he said.

Haftar paid an unexpected visit to Greece on Friday, meeting Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis and Foreign Minister Nikos Dendias, who spoke warmly of his talks with the renegade military commander, saying Haftar had agreed to void the maritime agreement struck between Turkey and the GNA.

The deal grants Ankara an exclusive economic zone in the eastern Mediterranean, an area potentially rich in unexplored energy resources, provoking fury from Greece, Egypt and Cyprus. 

Greece, which has not been invited to the Berlin summit, said it would veto at the EU level any deal that honours the November agreement, which it claims violates international law.

Thousands have been killed since Haftar's offensive began last April [File: Ismail Zitouny/Reuters]

Forgotten civilians

While the build-up to the summit has focused on high diplomacy, the stakes are highest for civilians in Libya, where the effect of the conflict has been devastating, especially in the area around Tripoli where most of the fighting has been concentrated.

Hundreds of civilians have been killed since Haftar's offensive began in April. More than 150,000 people have been displaced, over half of whom are children, according to the UN.

Water and waste management systems have been severely damaged, raising the risk of cholera and other waterborne diseases. 

"None of these political tracks ... have seen that civilians, and the effect of these conflicts on civilians, has taken centre stage," said Hanan Salah, senior researcher for Libya at Human Rights Watch (HRW).

"And that has been a huge problem in all of the interventions to date. Even when it came to the UN-led process, we also didn't see a strong focus on justice and accountability. It has always been: 'Let's get a quick and dirty political settlement'."

In July last year, head of the UN Support Mission in Libya Ghassan Salame proposed a three-point peace plan, involving a truce, a meeting of all nations involved in the conflict, and the establishment of political, military and economic tracks.

"I'm hoping that at some point there will be a democratic process and people will be able to choose who represents them, instead of actors who have hijacked the situation and are doing exactly as they please," HRW's Salah said.

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2020-01-18 11:14:00Z
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Erdogan warns EU may face 'terror threats' if Tripoli gov't falls - Al Jazeera English

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has warned Europe it could face new threats from "terrorist" groups if Libya's United Nations-recognised government in Tripoli were to fall, in an article published in Politico.

In the article released on Saturday, the eve of a Libya peace conference in Berlin, Erdogan said the European Union's failure to adequately support the Government of National Accord (GNA) would be "a betrayal of its own core values, including democracy and human rights".

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"Europe will encounter a fresh set of problems and threats if Libya's legitimate government were to fall," Erdogan wrote.

"Terrorist organisations such as ISIS [ISIL] and al-Qaeda, which suffered a military defeat in Syria and Iraq, will find a fertile ground to get back on their feet," he added.

"Keeping in mind that Europe is less interested in providing military support to Libya, the obvious choice is to work with Turkey, which has already promised military assistance," Erdogan continued.

"We will train Libya's security forces and help them combat terrorism, human trafficking and other serious threats against international security," he added.

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Renegade military commander Khalifa Haftar's eastern-based forces have been engaged in an offensive on Tripoli for more than nine months targeting the GNA led by Fayez al-Sarraj. The fighting has killed more than 2,000 people, including some 280 civilians, and displaced tens of thousands of others.

In a joint initiative, Turkey and Russia have brokered a ceasefire but Haftar walked away from talks in Moscow this week aimed at finalising the truce agreement.

A furious Erdogan warned on Tuesday that Turkey will not refrain from "teaching a lesson" to Haftar's self-styled Libyan National Army (LNA) forces if their attacks against the GNA continue. 

Both the LNA and GNA conditionally agreed to a truce brokered by Turkey and Russia last week, however, new fighting has been reported.

'Mistake of historic proportions'

Erdogan's government backs al-Sarraj and the Turkish parliament approved the deployment of troops to Libya earlier this month after the signing of controversial security and maritime deals between Tripoli and Ankara.

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Sources told Al Jazeera about 180 Turkish forces are believed to already be in Libya acting as military advisers and trainers.

"So far, the Turkish military hasn't stated anything about the potential size of the deployment to Libya to support the GNA, but we're told the military will not be involved in combat," said Al Jazeera's Sinem Koseoglu, reporting from Istanbul.

"To leave Libya at the mercy of a warlord would be a mistake of historic proportions," Erdogan wrote in his article, in a veiled reference to Haftar.

His article comes a day before the key conference on the Libya crisis in Berlin, which is expected to be attended by representatives of Libya's warring sides and several world powers.

Germany's foreign minister, Heiko Maas, said Haftar supported the temporary ceasefire and was also willing to attend the conference, but it remains to be seen.

SOURCE: Al Jazeera and news agencies

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2020-01-18 10:55:00Z
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China's coronavirus cases likely grossly underestimated, study says - CNN

Authorities in China's Wuhan city have confirmed 45 cases of the 2019 novel coronavirus, which is in the same family as the deadly severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) and Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS), but so far appears to be less lethal. Two people have died, Wuhan authorities say.

But the study, by Imperial College London, suggests that an estimated 1,723 people were likely to have been infected by January 12.

Officials in China have linked the viral infections to a Wuhan seafood and wildlife market, which has been closed since January 1 to prevent further spread of the illness.

Three travelers -- two now in Thailand and one in Japan -- who visited Wuhan but not the market have been infected with the virus, suggesting human-to-human transmission may be possible and raising concerns of the virus's further spread.

The number in the study is only an estimate and is based on several assumptions, including the number of cases that have been exported to Thailand and Japan, the number of people using Wuhan International Airport and the time it has taken for the infection to incubate.

Imperial College London's Neil Ferguson, a disease outbreak scientist, said that many aspects of the Wuhan coronavirus were "highly uncertain."

"However, the detection of three cases outside China is worrying. We calculate, based on flight and population data, that there is only a 1 in 574 chance that a person infected in Wuhan would travel overseas before they sought medical care. This implies there might have been over 1,700 cases in Wuhan so far," Ferguson told CNN.

"There are many unknowns, meaning the uncertainty range around this estimate goes from 190 cases to over 4,000. But the magnitude of these numbers suggests that substantial human-to-human transmission cannot be ruled out. Heightened surveillance, prompt information sharing and enhanced preparedness are recommended."

Three US airports will start screening passengers arriving from Wuhan to check for signs of the virus, such as coughing, difficulty breathing and high temperatures with the use of an infrared thermometer, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced Friday.

The agency is deploying more than 100 people to carry out the screenings at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York, San Francisco International Airport and Los Angeles International Airport. Last year, more than 60,000 passengers arrived in the US from Wuhan, the vast majority coming through those three airports.

While the new virus has not shown death rates like MERS and SARS -- which infected more than 8,000 people and killed 774 in a pandemic that ripped through Asia in 2002 and 2003 -- so little is known about it that health authorities are calling for vigilance.

"Much remains to be understood about the new coronavirus, which was first identified in China earlier this month. Not enough is known about 2019-nCoV to draw definitive conclusions about how it is transmitted, clinical features of disease, or the extent to which it has spread. The source also remains unknown," the World Health Organization said Friday.

CNN's Vanessa Yung and Elizabeth Cohen contributed to this report.

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2020-01-18 10:16:00Z
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The US operation in Iraq could come to an embarrassing end. Iran's power will only grow - CNN

Officials in Iraq's parliament, where powerful blocs have unbreakable ties to Tehran, started a process to end the presence of foreign troops in the country, in a clear riposte to the US after it killed top Iranian commander Qasm Soleimani in a drone strike in Baghdad two weeks ago.

In the wake of the strike, joint US-Iraqi operations against ISIS were put on hold, and Iraq's caretaker prime minister said a US troop withdrawal was the only way to "protect all those on Iraqi soil," though this week he said that decision would be up to the next government.

But a US withdrawal could bring even more trouble, experts say. ISIS continues its attacks in the country, and without US and other foreign troops, the group would have more room to resurge. At the same time, Iran will be able to expand its already far-reaching powers in Baghdad.

Tehran and Washington have competed for influence in Iraq since the US 2003 invasion, and in that battle, Iran is already winning. Its consistent and coherent strategy, which the US lacks, has allowed Tehran to gradually weave itself into the fabric of everyday life in Iraq.

It has capitalized on years of war and occupation to form militia groups that have become official factions of the Iraqi military, while economically, it provides an enormous amount of exports that Iraqis have come to rely on. It has made surrogates out of senior Iraqi government officials and members of parliament.

Because of those links, the Iraqi parliament's decision to side with Iran after the attack on Soleimani is not surprising. The strike appears to have backfired, to the benefit of Iran's long-term goal: getting the US out of the region.

"Iran is the most influential state in Iraq now," said Fawaz Gerges, a professor of international relations at the London School of Economics and Political Science. "That power is only going to grow if the US leaves."

He said that the most important challenge for Iraq now was not ISIS, but rebuilding a working nation -- fighting corruption, changing the sectarian-based government to one based on citizenship and professionalizing the army, for example. Iran isn't interested in those goals, Gerges said, and a US withdrawal would embolden it further its reach across the Middle East.

"If the US leaves, people across the region will think that despite his flowery rhetorical devices, Trump does not really have a strategy for the Middle East and at the end of the day will fold and go home," Gerges said.

Being forced out would be a humiliating end to the US' long mission in Iraq, which has sucked up hundreds of billions of US taxpayers' money and left thousands of US soldiers dead.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has denied the US will leave, but pointed to a possible reduction of numbers. Gerges sees that proposal as a face-saving exercise for the US that could allow the American troops to stay in small numbers for the fight against ISIS but essentially begin the process of withdrawal.

How Iran got a hold on Iraq

Much of Iran's power in Iraq comes through militia groups that have roots in the 1980s Iraq-Iran war. Recruiting fighters from Iraq wasn't that difficult. Iraq was a Shia-majority nation led for more than two decades by brutal dictator Saddam Hussein, born a Sunni.

Iran, which has long pitched itself as the world's leader of Shia Muslims, took in Shia prisoners of war and refugees, and turned them into soldiers who would go back to Iraq to act in Tehran's interests, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Some became part of what is now known as the Badr Organization, the report said, both a militia group and an anti-US political party in Iraq today.

"Because of the institutional organizational capacity of those paramilitary groups, when Saddam fell and the repression that contained them ended, they flourished. They had the capacity to expand and to operate more overtly," said Jack Watling, a specialist in land warfare at the London-based Royal United Services Institute.

The fight against ISIS provided another recruitment opportunity for Iran, particular after the terrorist group took Mosul and the Iraqi military collapsed. It was at this time the Popular Mobilization Units (PMUs), a coalition of mostly Shia militias, formed and became a powerful force in the country, in the absence of a real army. They have since been officially folded into Iraq's military.

According to Watling, there are now around 113,000 salaried personnel in the powerful Tehran-backed Iraqi militia group. Of those, some 60,000 are actively deployable as fighters, and of those, 36,000 are directed by Iran.

In the 2018 Iraqi elections, the political wing of the PMUs, Fatah, won the second-highest number of seats in parliament, giving another powerful voice to Iranian interests in the Iraqi government.

Economically, Iran has ensured Iraq is dependent on it for energy, seeking loopholes and waivers from the US to get around sanctions and sell energy to its neighbor. Iraq is also Iran's second most important destination for its exports, after China, according to the Observatory of Economic Complexity, so Tehran wants to ensure its market across the border is well secured.

Trump sends mixed messages

As Iran made steady headway in the Iraqi government and military, the US' objective in Iraq has changed so many times that it's become muddy and unfocused. Iraqi officials are growing weary of the changes that have come with each new US president, and the mixed signals being sent by the Trump administration.

Pompeo is struggling to send the message that the US is in Iraq to fight ISIS, while strikes on Iranians there and comments from Trump indicate otherwise.

Last year, Trump admitted in an interview with CBS News that he wanted to keep a base in Iraq "because I want to be looking a little bit at Iran because Iran is a real problem." The comment provoked Tehran, and sowed confusion in Iraq.

Watling said the US appears to have shifted its interests in Iraq from countering ISIS to countering Iran.

"If the US said our objective is a strong and stable Iraq, then in many ways their best course of action would be to collaborate closely with the Iranians. But it's not. Their wish to counter the Iranian government in many ways overrides their wish to support the Iraqi state. There are contradictions in US policy in the region," he said.

Watling questioned what Trump's "maximum pressure" campaign against Iran was aiming to achieve. Iran's long-term strategy in Iraq, on the other hand, is paying off.

"We have seen a broadly unified attempt to ensure that Iran underwrites and limits Baghdad's military capability and that they retain Iraq as a market for their exports and as an economic partner," he said.

Winning hearts and minds

Despite achieving the regime change the US was looking for, with the capture and execution of Saddam, the US left Iraq in 2011 with an unsteady government in place. It had no choice but to send troops back to put out fires with the spread of ISIS. Iran also took part in the fight against ISIS, but it continued with its drive to boost influence in Iraq.

But Iran is failing in one key area. It hasn't really won the hearts of the people.

Anti-government protesters galvanized by deep economic grievances that have accumulated over many years have found themselves facing off with Iranian-backed forces.

Demonstrators were rallying against endemic corruption and cronyism, which they blame on "confessionalism," a system of government introduced by the US that divides power based on sectarian affiliation. While Iran didn't create that status quo, it has had a stake in maintaining it.

In video footage of some of the demonstrations, protesters can be heard yelling chants against both Iran and the US. Young Iraqis in particular don't want either the US or Iran in their country, said Joost Hitermann, who leads the International Crisis Group's Middle East and North Africa program.

"Iraqis want to get rid of both. Some might like one more than they other, and they don't want just one of the two alone there, to dominate their country," Hitermann said.

"Shia Iraqis may be loosely aligned with Iran, but they don't subscribe to the Iranian Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The Iranian way is not all what Shia Iraqis want."

CNN's Tamara Qiblawi contributed to this report.

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2020-01-18 09:23:00Z
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The US operation in Iraq could come to an embarrassing end. Iran's power will only grow - CNN

Officials in Iraq's parliament, where powerful blocs have unbreakable ties to Tehran, started a process to end the presence of foreign troops in the country, in a clear riposte to the US after it killed top Iranian commander Qasm Soleimani in a drone strike in Baghdad two weeks ago.

In the wake of the strike, joint US-Iraqi operations against ISIS were put on hold, and Iraq's caretaker prime minister said a US troop withdrawal was the only way to "protect all those on Iraqi soil," though this week he said that decision would be up to the next government.

But a US withdrawal could bring even more trouble, experts say. ISIS continues its attacks in the country, and without US and other foreign troops, the group would have more room to resurge. At the same time, Iran will be able to expand its already far-reaching powers in Baghdad.

Tehran and Washington have competed for influence in Iraq since the US 2003 invasion, and in that battle, Iran is already winning. Its consistent and coherent strategy, which the US lacks, has allowed Tehran to gradually weave itself into the fabric of everyday life in Iraq.

It has capitalized on years of war and occupation to form militia groups that have become official factions of the Iraqi military, while economically, it provides an enormous amount of exports that Iraqis have come to rely on. It has made surrogates out of senior Iraqi government officials and members of parliament.

Because of those links, the Iraqi parliament's decision to side with Iran after the attack on Soleimani is not surprising. The strike appears to have backfired, to the benefit of Iran's long-term goal: getting the US out of the region.

"Iran is the most influential state in Iraq now," said Fawaz Gerges, a professor of international relations at the London School of Economics and Political Science. "That power is only going to grow if the US leaves."

He said that the most important challenge for Iraq now was not ISIS, but rebuilding a working nation -- fighting corruption, changing the sectarian-based government to one based on citizenship and professionalizing the army, for example. Iran isn't interested in those goals, Gerges said, and a US withdrawal would embolden it further its reach across the Middle East.

"If the US leaves, people across the region will think that despite his flowery rhetorical devices, Trump does not really have a strategy for the Middle East and at the end of the day will fold and go home," Gerges said.

Being forced out would be a humiliating end to the US' long mission in Iraq, which has sucked up hundreds of billions of US taxpayers' money and left thousands of US soldiers dead.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has denied the US will leave, but pointed to a possible reduction of numbers. Gerges sees that proposal as a face-saving exercise for the US that could allow the American troops to stay in small numbers for the fight against ISIS but essentially begin the process of withdrawal.

How Iran got a hold on Iraq

Much of Iran's power in Iraq comes through militia groups that have roots in the 1980s Iraq-Iran war. Recruiting fighters from Iraq wasn't that difficult. Iraq was a Shia-majority nation led for more than two decades by brutal dictator Saddam Hussein, born a Sunni.

Iran, which has long pitched itself as the world's leader of Shia Muslims, took in Shia prisoners of war and refugees, and turned them into soldiers who would go back to Iraq to act in Tehran's interests, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Some became part of what is now known as the Badr Organization, the report said, both a militia group and an anti-US political party in Iraq today.

"Because of the institutional organizational capacity of those paramilitary groups, when Saddam fell and the repression that contained them ended, they flourished. They had the capacity to expand and to operate more overtly," said Jack Watling, a specialist in land warfare at the London-based Royal United Services Institute.

The fight against ISIS provided another recruitment opportunity for Iran, particular after the terrorist group took Mosul and the Iraqi military collapsed. It was at this time the Popular Mobilization Units (PMUs), a coalition of mostly Shia militias, formed and became a powerful force in the country, in the absence of a real army. They have since been officially folded into Iraq's military.

According to Watling, there are now around 113,000 salaried personnel in the powerful Tehran-backed Iraqi militia group. Of those, some 60,000 are actively deployable as fighters, and of those, 36,000 are directed by Iran.

In the 2018 Iraqi elections, the political wing of the PMUs, Fatah, won the second-highest number of seats in parliament, giving another powerful voice to Iranian interests in the Iraqi government.

Economically, Iran has ensured Iraq is dependent on it for energy, seeking loopholes and waivers from the US to get around sanctions and sell energy to its neighbor. Iraq is also Iran's second most important destination for its exports, after China, according to the Observatory of Economic Complexity, so Tehran wants to ensure its market across the border is well secured.

Trump sends mixed messages

As Iran made steady headway in the Iraqi government and military, the US' objective in Iraq has changed so many times that it's become muddy and unfocused. Iraqi officials are growing weary of the changes that have come with each new US president, and the mixed signals being sent by the Trump administration.

Pompeo is struggling to send the message that the US is in Iraq to fight ISIS, while strikes on Iranians there and comments from Trump indicate otherwise.

Last year, Trump admitted in an interview with CBS News that he wanted to keep a base in Iraq "because I want to be looking a little bit at Iran because Iran is a real problem." The comment provoked Tehran, and sowed confusion in Iraq.

Watling said the US appears to have shifted its interests in Iraq from countering ISIS to countering Iran.

"If the US said our objective is a strong and stable Iraq, then in many ways their best course of action would be to collaborate closely with the Iranians. But it's not. Their wish to counter the Iranian government in many ways overrides their wish to support the Iraqi state. There are contradictions in US policy in the region," he said.

Watling questioned what Trump's "maximum pressure" campaign against Iran was aiming to achieve. Iran's long-term strategy in Iraq, on the other hand, is paying off.

"We have seen a broadly unified attempt to ensure that Iran underwrites and limits Baghdad's military capability and that they retain Iraq as a market for their exports and as an economic partner," he said.

Winning hearts and minds

Despite achieving the regime change the US was looking for, with the capture and execution of Saddam, the US left Iraq in 2011 with an unsteady government in place. It had no choice but to send troops back to put out fires with the spread of ISIS. Iran also took part in the fight against ISIS, but it continued with its drive to boost influence in Iraq.

But Iran is failing in one key area. It hasn't really won the hearts of the people.

Anti-government protesters galvanized by deep economic grievances that have accumulated over many years have found themselves facing off with Iranian-backed forces.

Demonstrators were rallying against endemic corruption and cronyism, which they blame on "confessionalism," a system of government introduced by the US that divides power based on sectarian affiliation. While Iran didn't create that status quo, it has had a stake in maintaining it.

In video footage of some of the demonstrations, protesters can be heard yelling chants against both Iran and the US. Young Iraqis in particular don't want either the US or Iran in their country, said Joost Hitermann, who leads the International Crisis Group's Middle East and North Africa program.

"Iraqis want to get rid of both. Some might like one more than they other, and they don't want just one of the two alone there, to dominate their country," Hitermann said.

"Shia Iraqis may be loosely aligned with Iran, but they don't subscribe to the Iranian Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The Iranian way is not all what Shia Iraqis want."

CNN's Tamara Qiblawi contributed to this report.

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2020-01-18 07:59:00Z
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Iran’s supreme leader calls Trump a clown, praises missile attack in rare appearance - Fox News

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, conducted Friday prayers in Tehran for the first time since 2012 and used the platform to praise the country's retaliatory strike against the U.S. over the killing of one of its top generals. He also appeared to call President Trump a clown who cannot be trusted.

In the rare appearance, Khamenei dismissed the “American clowns” who he said pretend to support the Iranian nation but want to stick their “poisoned dagger” into its back.

“The villainous U.S. government repeatedly says that they are standing by the Iranian people. They lie,” he said. “If you are standing with the Iranian people, it is only to stab them in the heart with their venomous daggers.”

US-IRAN TENSIONS: A TIMELINE OF INCIDENTS BETWEEN TWO LONGTIME RIVALS

In this photo released by the official website of the office of the Iranian supreme leader, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei delivers his sermon in the Friday prayers at Imam Khomeini Grand Mosque in Tehran, Iran, Friday, Jan. 17, 2020. Iran's supreme leader said President Donald Trump is a "clown" who only pretends to support the Iranian people but will "push a poisonous dagger" into their backs, as he struck a defiant tone in his first Friday sermon in Tehran in eight years. (Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader via AP)

He also insisted Iran would not bow to U.S. pressure after months of crushing sanctions and called Washington’s decision to kill Gen. Qassem Soleimani a “cowardly” hit.

“The shameless U.S. government was disgraced by calling Martyr Soleimani a terrorist when he was recognized by everyone as the most prominent and powerful commander in the fight against terrorism,” he said. “The U.S. government killed Martyr Soleimani, not in the battlefield but thievishly and cowardly.”

Iran, in response to the Jan. 8 airstrikes that billed Soleimani in Baghdad, launched a barrage of ballistic missiles targeting U.S. troops in Iraq. While there were no casualties, the U.S. military said 11 service members were flown out of Al Assad Air Base in Iraq and treated for concussion symptoms.

“The fact that Iran has the power to give such a slap to a world power shows the hand of God,” Khamenei said.

“More important and greater than a military strike, it was a blow to the dignity and awe of the U.S. as a superpower.”

As Iran’s Revolutionary Guard braced for a possible American counterattack, it mistakenly shot down a Ukrainian passenger jetliner shortly after it took off from Tehran’s international airport. All 176 people on board – mostly Iranians – were killed.

IRAN MUST COMPENSATE PLANE CRASH VICTIMS' FAMILIES FAIRLY, OTHER GOVERNMENTS SAY

Khamenei called the shootdown of the plane a “bitter accident” that saddened Iran as much as it made its enemies happy.

Authorities concealed their role in the tragedy for three days, initially blaming the crash on a technical problem. When it came, their admission of responsibility triggered days of street protests, which security forces dispersed with live ammunition and tear gas.

Khamenei has held the country's top office since 1989 and has the final say on all major decisions. The 80-year-old leader openly wept at the funeral of Soleimani and vowed “harsh retaliation” against the United States.

Thousands of people attended the Friday prayers, occasionally interrupting his speech by chanting “God is greatest!” and “Death to America!”

Khamenei told the crowd Friday that President Trump is not to be trusted and only pretends to support the Iranian people. He said Western countries are too weak to "bring Iranians to their knees." He said Iran was willing to negotiate, but not with the U.S.

Tensions between Iran and the United States have steadily escalated since Trump withdrew from the nuclear accord, which had imposed restrictions on Iran's nuclear program in exchange for the lifting of international sanctions.

The U.S. has since imposed crippling sanctions on Iran, including its vital oil and gas industry, pushing the country into an economic crisis that has ignited several waves of sporadic, leaderless protests. Trump has openly encouraged the protesters — even tweeting in Farsi — hoping that the protests and the sanctions will bring about fundamental change in a longtime adversary.

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Khamenei last delivered a Friday sermon in February 2012, when he called Israel a “cancerous tumor” and vowed to support anyone confronting it. He also warned against any U.S. strikes on Iran over its nuclear program, saying the U.S. would be damaged “10 times over.”

His decision to lead the prayers was seen as a "symbolically significant act," one usually reserved for an important message to the people, a Middle East scholar told The Washington Post.

Fox News' Adam Shaw, Louis Casiano, Greg Norman, and the Associated Press contributed to this report.

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2020-01-17 14:02:57Z
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