AMMAN (CNS): “We prayed during the days of Christmas for peace on earth and the timing of this revenge from America creates in us a big anxiety about what will happen,” Chaldean Catholic Archbishop Yousif Thomas Mirkis of Kirkuk, Iraq, said following the killing in Baghdad of Iran’s top general, Qassem Soleimani, by a United States (US) drone strike.
Iraqis fear their country, already weary from years of war, may be dragged into a conflict between the United States and Iran.
“This can also divide the population. Some are against. Some are for,” Archbishop Mirkis explained, but warned that the assassination of Soleimani, known as the architect of Tehran’s proxy wars in the Middle East, could spark further sectarian divisions in Iraq between Sunni Muslims and Shiites.
Many of the recent demonstrations that have rocked the capital, Baghdad, and southern Iraq, were against the growing influence of Iran and Soleimani’s al-Quds Force inside Iraq. Soleimani was widely seen as the second most powerful figure in Iran, behind Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader.
Soleimani is believed to have been responsible for hundreds of US service member deaths in Iraq. He was also Iran’s main strategist in the Syrian conflict.
“We only pray that the situation can be calm and peaceful. We are waiting to see,” Archbishop Mirkis said, adding, “The situation in Baghdad and the south is more troubled. But Kirkuk and Kurdistan region is still calm. Until now, this is all that we can say.”
Archbishop Leo Boccardi, apostolic nuncio to Iran, told the Italian news agency ANSA that the first reactions in Tehran were “incredulity, pain and anger.”
He said, “I think tensions have reached a level never seen before, and this is worrying and further complicates the situation in the region, which truly appears to be intensely heated.”
Meanwhile, the US Embassy in Baghdad issued a security alert telling Americans to “depart Iraq immediately, via airline while possible and failing that, to other countries via land.”
Analysts say Soleimani was a “much more powerful figure” than former al-Qaida chief Osama bin Laden or Abu Bakr Baghdadi, the now-deceased leader of the so-called Islamic State.
The Soleimani killing was sparked by a series of escalating attacks between the US and Iranian-backed forces. It began with the Iranian-backed Iraqi Shiite militia Kataeb Hezbollah’s firing 31 rockets into a base in Kirkuk province on December 27. The attack killed an American contractor and wounded several US and Iraqi servicemen.
In response, the US bombed five of the militia’s sites in Iraq and Syria. Militia supporters retaliated by setting fire to the wall and attacking the US Embassy in Baghdad.
Fawaz Gerges, professor of international relations at the London School of Economics, said many are now anxious about what action Tehran will take against the US and its interests.
Former US ambassador, Matthew Bryza, now of the Washington-based Atlantic Council, said he believes Iran may use one of its proxies, such as the Lebanese Shiite militia, Hezbollah, to carry out a retaliatory attack, possibly against Israel, a US Mideast ally.
An emergency session of the Iraqi parliament on January 4 called for an end to the longstanding US military presence in Iraq. Analysts believe this would have disastrous consequences for the fight against Islamic State militants.
Adel Abdul-Mahdi, Iraq’s outgoing prime minister, called for the emergency session, describing the attack that killed Soleimani as a violation of conditions for the US troop presence.
The World Council of Churches appealed for all sides to “exercise maximum restraint, to refrain from further escalation, and to give priority to the welfare of all people of the region, and their right to peace and stability after so many years of violence and bloodshed.”
“This attack and anticipated reactions to it threaten even wider and more disastrous conflict in the region,” Reverend Olav Fykse Tveit, WCC general secretary, said.
Speaking during the Epiphany Mass in at St. Joseph Cathedral, Baghdad, on January 6, Chaldean Catholic Patriarch Louis Sako, said “wisdom is required to avoid the ‘volcanic eruption’ we are about to face,” adding that “innocent people will be the fuel for such fire.”
He said the current crisis resulted from the “upsetting escalation, as well as the emotional and impulsive decisions taken which lacked wisdom and the sense of responsibility.”
He invited Christians and Muslims to pray for the decision-makers to act wisely and consider the consequences of their strategies.
