Iran Vows 'Severe Revenge' for Top General's Death

The assassination of Iranian commander Qasem Soleimani, which was ordered by US President Donald Trump, ratcheted up tensions between the arch-enemies | AFP
The assassination of Iranian commander Qasem Soleimani, which was ordered by US President Donald Trump, ratcheted up tensions between the arch-enemies | AFP
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Iran Vows 'Severe Revenge' for Top General's Death

The assassination of Iranian commander Qasem Soleimani, which was ordered by US President Donald Trump, ratcheted up tensions between the arch-enemies | AFP
The assassination of Iranian commander Qasem Soleimani, which was ordered by US President Donald Trump, ratcheted up tensions between the arch-enemies | AFP

Thousands of Iraqis have followed the coffin of Iranian military commander Qasem Soleimani, killed in a US airstrike at Baghdad airport on Friday.

Soleimani, viewed as a terrorist by the White House, was the architect of Iran's Middle East operations and Iran has vowed to take "severe revenge".

The funeral procession which began in Baghdad on Saturday marks the beginning of days of mourning for Soleimani.

The crowds in Baghdad also mourned the death of Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, an Iraqi who commanded the Iranian-backed Kataib Hezbollah group and effectively led the Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF) - an umbrella of militias in Iraq dominated by groups aligned with Iran.

Soleimani's body arrived Sunday in Iran where thousands of mourners thronged his coffin ahead of a grand funeral procession across the Islamic Republic amid soaring tensions between Iran and the US.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has promised members of the dead commander's family that Americans will "feel the impact" of their "criminal act... for years ahead".

The US drone strike killing Soleimani in Iraq Friday escalated the crisis 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 atomic accord.

Iran has promised "harsh revenge" for the US attack, which shocked Iranians across all political lines. Many saw Soleimani as a pillar of the Islamic Republic at a moment when it is beset by US sanctions and recent anti-government protests.

Retaliation for Soleimani could potentially come through the proxy forces which he oversaw as the head of an elite unit within the paramilitary Revolutionary Guard. Soleimani's longtime deputy Esmail Ghaani already has taken over as the Quds Force's commander.

Late Saturday, a series of rockets launched in Baghdad fell inside or near the Green Zone, which houses government offices and foreign embassies, including the US Embassy.

Trump warned on Saturday that America was targeting 52 sites in Iran and would hit them "very fast and very hard" if the Islamic republic attacks American personnel or assets.

In a saber-rattling tweet, Trump said: "If they attack again, which I would strongly advise them not to do, we will hit them harder than they have ever been hit before!"

The 52 targets represented the 52 Americans held hostage in Iran after being seized at the US Embassy in 1979 during the country’s Islamic Revolution, Trump said.

The two countries have no diplomatic relations and on Sunday, Iran summoned the Swiss envoy representing US interests in Tehran to protest at “Trump’s hostile remarks”, according to Iranian state television.

Iran’s army chief, Major General Abdolrahim Mousavi, was quoted by state television on Sunday as saying the United States lacked the courage for military confrontation with Iran.

“In a potential conflict in the future, which I don’t think they (Americans) have the courage to carry out, there it will become clear where the numbers five and two will belong,” he said.

Trump said on Friday Soleimani had been plotting imminent attacks on US diplomats and military personnel. Democratic critics said the Republican president’s action was reckless and risked more bloodshed in a dangerous region.

Oman has called on the United States and Iran to seek dialogue to ease tensions, Oman News Agency reported on Sunday. Oman, which maintains friendly ties with both the United States and Iran, has previously been a go-between for the two countries.

British foreign minister Dominic Raab described Soleimani as a “regional menace” and said he was sympathetic to the situation the United States found itself in, while also calling for crisis diplomacy to avoid war.

“There is a route through which allows Iran to come in from out of the international cold,” Raab told Sky News. “We need to contain the nefarious actions of Iran but we also need to de-escalate and stabilize the situation.”

European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell urged Iran’s foreign minister by phone on Sunday to work to de-escalate the situation and invited him to Brussels to discuss ways of preserving world powers’ 2015 nuclear deal with Iran.

Trump’s withdrawal of the United States from the deal in 2018 and the reimposition of sanctions on Iran touched off a new spiral of tensions after a brief thaw following the accord.

Iran will decide on Sunday about its next step to further roll back its commitments to the nuclear deal, Foreign Ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi was quoted as saying.

“Tonight, there will be a very important meeting to decide about our next nuclear step and the implementation of the deal ... considering the recent threats (by America) it should be underlined that in politics, all developments and threats are linked to each other,” state news agency IRNA quoted him as saying.

Iran previously has broken limits of its enrichment, its stockpiles, and its centrifuges, as well as restarted enrichment at an underground facility.

After the airstrike early Friday, the US-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 US has dispatched another 3,000 troops to Kuwait, the latest in a series of deployments in recent months as the standoff with Iran has worsened. Protesters held demonstrations in dozens of US 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 militias, 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 US bases starting Sunday night. However, US troops are invariably based in Iraqi military posts alongside local forces.

The Iranian parliament on Sunday opened with lawmakers in unison chanting: "Death to America!" Parliament speaker Ali Larijani compared Soleimani's killing to the 1953 CIA-backed coup that cemented the shah's power and to the US Navy's shootdown of an Iranian passenger plane in 1988 that killed 290 people. He also described American officials as following "the law of the jungle."

"Mr. Trump! This is the voice of Iranian nation. Listen!" Larijani said as lawmakers chanted.

A spokesman for Iran's armed forces, Gen. Abolfazl Shekarchi, likewise threatened the US by saying Iran and the "resistance front will decide the time, place and way" revenge will be carried out.

Iraq's parliament is meeting for an emergency session Sunday. Its 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 ISIS group.

The US 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, as London said it would begin escorting ships through the Strait of Hormuz.

No one was hurt in the embassy protests, which came in response to US airstrikes that killed 25 Iran-backed militiamen in Iraq and Syria. The US blamed the militia for a rocket attack that killed a US contractor in northern Iraq.



UK PM's Top Aide Quits over Mandelson-Epstein Scandal

FILE PHOTO: British Prime Minister Keir Starmer talks with Britain's ambassador to the United States Peter Mandelson during a welcome reception at the ambassador's residence on February 26, 2025, in Washington, DC, US. Carl Court/Pool via REUTERS/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: British Prime Minister Keir Starmer talks with Britain's ambassador to the United States Peter Mandelson during a welcome reception at the ambassador's residence on February 26, 2025, in Washington, DC, US. Carl Court/Pool via REUTERS/File Photo
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UK PM's Top Aide Quits over Mandelson-Epstein Scandal

FILE PHOTO: British Prime Minister Keir Starmer talks with Britain's ambassador to the United States Peter Mandelson during a welcome reception at the ambassador's residence on February 26, 2025, in Washington, DC, US. Carl Court/Pool via REUTERS/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: British Prime Minister Keir Starmer talks with Britain's ambassador to the United States Peter Mandelson during a welcome reception at the ambassador's residence on February 26, 2025, in Washington, DC, US. Carl Court/Pool via REUTERS/File Photo

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer's chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney, quit on Sunday, saying he took responsibility for advising Starmer to name Peter Mandelson as ambassador to the US despite his known links to Jeffrey Epstein.

After new files revealed the depth of the Labour veteran's relationship with the late sex offender, Starmer is facing what is widely seen as the gravest crisis of his 18 months in power over his decision to send Mandelson to Washington in 2024, Reuters reported.

The loss of McSweeney, 48, a strategist who was instrumental in Starmer's rise to power, is the latest in a series of setbacks, less than two years after the Labour Party won one of the largest parliamentary majorities in modern British history.

With polls showing Starmer is hugely unpopular with voters after a series of embarrassing U-turns, some in his own party are openly questioning his judgment and his future, and it remains to be seen whether McSweeney's exit will be enough to silence critics.

The files released in the US on January 30 sparked a police investigation for misconduct in office over indications that Mandelson leaked market-sensitive information to Epstein when he was a government minister during the global financial crisis in 2009 and 2010.

In a statement, McSweeney said: "The decision to ⁠appoint Peter Mandelson was wrong. He has damaged our party, our country and trust in politics itself.
"When asked, I advised the Prime Minister to make that appointment and I take full responsibility for that advice."

The leader of the opposition Conservative Party, Kemi Badenoch, said the resignation was overdue and that "Keir Starmer has to take responsibility for his own terrible decisions".

Nigel Farage, head of the populist Reform UK party, which is leading in the polls, said he believed Starmer's time would soon be up.

Starmer has spent the last week defending McSweeney, a strategy that could prompt further questions about his own judgment. In a statement on Sunday, Starmer said it had been "an honor" working with him.

Many Labour members of parliament had blamed McSweeney for the appointment of Mandelson and the damage caused by the publication of the exchanges between Epstein ⁠and Mandelson. Others have said Starmer must go.

One Labour lawmaker, speaking on condition of anonymity, said McSweeney's resignation had come too late: "It buys the PM time, but it's still the end of days."

Starmer sacked Mandelson as ambassador in September over his links to Epstein.

The government agreed last week to release virtually all previously private communications between members of his government from the time when Mandelson was being appointed.

That release could come as early as this week, creating a new headache for Starmer just as he hopes to move on. If previously secret messages about how London planned to approach its relationship with Donald Trump are made public, it could damage Starmer's relationship with the US President.

McSweeney had held the role of chief of staff since October 2024, when he was handed the job following the resignation of Sue Gray after a row over pay and donations.

Starmer on Sunday appointed his deputy chiefs of staff, Jill Cuthbertson and Vidhya Alakeson, to serve as joint acting chiefs of staff.


Iran Sentences Nobel Laureate Narges Mohammadi to 7 More Years in Prison

(FILES) A handout photo provided by the Narges Mohammadi Foundation on October 2, 2023 shows an undated, unlocated photo of Iranian rights campaigner Narges Mohammadi. (Photo by Handout / NARGES MOHAMMADI FOUNDATION / AFP)
(FILES) A handout photo provided by the Narges Mohammadi Foundation on October 2, 2023 shows an undated, unlocated photo of Iranian rights campaigner Narges Mohammadi. (Photo by Handout / NARGES MOHAMMADI FOUNDATION / AFP)
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Iran Sentences Nobel Laureate Narges Mohammadi to 7 More Years in Prison

(FILES) A handout photo provided by the Narges Mohammadi Foundation on October 2, 2023 shows an undated, unlocated photo of Iranian rights campaigner Narges Mohammadi. (Photo by Handout / NARGES MOHAMMADI FOUNDATION / AFP)
(FILES) A handout photo provided by the Narges Mohammadi Foundation on October 2, 2023 shows an undated, unlocated photo of Iranian rights campaigner Narges Mohammadi. (Photo by Handout / NARGES MOHAMMADI FOUNDATION / AFP)

Iran sentenced Nobel Peace Prize laureate Narges Mohammadi to over seven more years in prison after she began a hunger strike, supporters said Sunday.

Mohammadi’s supporters cited her lawyer, who spoke to Mohammadi.

The lawyer, Mostafa Nili, confirmed the sentence on X, saying it had been handed down Saturday by a Revolutionary Court in the city of Mashhad. Such courts typically issue verdicts with little or no opportunity for defendants to contest their charges.

“She has been sentenced to six years in prison for ‘gathering and collusion’ and one and a half years for propaganda and two-year travel ban,” he wrote, according to The Associated Press.

She received another two years of internal exile to the city of Khosf, some 740 kilometers (460 miles) southeast of Tehran, the capital, the lawyer added.

Supporters say Mohammadi has been on a hunger strike since Feb. 2. She had been arrested in December at a ceremony honoring Khosrow Alikordi, a 46-year-old Iranian lawyer and human rights advocate who had been based in Mashhad. Footage from the demonstration showed her shouting, demanding justice for Alikordi and others.

Supporters had warned for months before her December arrest that Mohammadi, 53, was at risk of being put back into prison after she received a furlough in December 2024 over medical concerns.

While that was to be only three weeks, Mohammadi’s time out of prison lengthened, possibly as activists and Western powers pushed Iran to keep her free. She remained out even during the 12-day war in June between Iran and Israel.

Mohammadi still kept up her activism with public protests and international media appearances, including even demonstrating at one point in front of Tehran’s notorious Evin prison, where she had been held.

Mohammadi had been serving 13 years and nine months on charges of collusion against state security and propaganda against Iran’s government.

She also had backed the nationwide protests sparked by the 2022 death of Mahsa Amini, which have seen women openly defy the government by not wearing the hijab.

Mohammadi suffered multiple heart attacks while imprisoned before undergoing emergency surgery in 2022, her supporters say. Her lawyer in late 2024 revealed doctors had found a bone lesion that they feared could be cancerous that later was removed.

“Considering her illnesses, it is expected that she will be temporarily released on bail so that she can receive treatment,” Nili wrote.

However, Iranian officials have been signaling a harder line against all dissent since the recent demonstrations. Speaking on Sunday, Iranian judiciary chief Gholamhossein Mohseni-Ejei made comments suggesting harsh prison sentences awaited many.

“Look at some individuals who once were with the revolution and accompanied the revolution," he said. "Today, what they are saying, what they are writing, what statements they issue, they are unfortunate, they are forlorn (and) they will face damage.”


Nigeria's President to Make a Sate Visit to the UK in March

Nigeria’s President Bola Tinubu gives a joint statement with Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, at the Planalto presidential palace, in Brasilia, Brazil, Aug. 25, 2025. (AP Photo/Eraldo Peres, File)
Nigeria’s President Bola Tinubu gives a joint statement with Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, at the Planalto presidential palace, in Brasilia, Brazil, Aug. 25, 2025. (AP Photo/Eraldo Peres, File)
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Nigeria's President to Make a Sate Visit to the UK in March

Nigeria’s President Bola Tinubu gives a joint statement with Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, at the Planalto presidential palace, in Brasilia, Brazil, Aug. 25, 2025. (AP Photo/Eraldo Peres, File)
Nigeria’s President Bola Tinubu gives a joint statement with Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, at the Planalto presidential palace, in Brasilia, Brazil, Aug. 25, 2025. (AP Photo/Eraldo Peres, File)

Nigeria’s president is set to make a state visit to the UK in March, the first such trip by a Nigerian leader in almost four decades, Britain’s Buckingham Palace said Sunday.

Officials said President Bola Tinubu and first lady Oluremi Tinubu will travel to the UK on March 18 and 19, The AP news reported.

King Charles III and Queen Camilla will host them at Windsor Castle. Full details of the visit are expected at a later date.

Charles visited Nigeria, a Commonwealth country, four times from 1990 to 2018 before he became king. He previously received Tinubu at Buckingham Palace in September 2024.m

Previous state visits by a Nigerian leader took place in 1973, 1981 and 1989.

A state visit usually starts with an official reception hosted by the king and includes a carriage procession and a state banquet.

Last year Charles hosted state visits for world leaders including US President Donald Trump, French President Emmanuel Macron and German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier.