by AFP -- Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah on Sunday said the US army will "pay the price" for killing top Iranian general Qasem Soleimani and a senior Iraqi commander in a drone strike. "The American army killed them and it will pay the price," the Iran-backed head of the Lebanese Shiite group warned in a televised speech following Friday's strike in the Iraqi capital. "The only just punishment is (to target) American military presence in the region: US military bases, US warships, each and every officer and soldier in the region," Nasrallah said. He added however that American civilians such as "businessmen, engineers, journalists and doctors" should be spared. "When the coffins of American soldiers and officers... start to return to the United States, (US President Donald) Trump and his administration will realise they have lost the region," he said.

Soleimani and top Iraqi military figure Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis were killed in a US drone strike Friday near Baghdad's international airport, sparking fury in Iran and Iraq. Nasrallah's speech was beamed to black-clad supporters who gathered in southern Beirut, waving Hezbollah's yellow flag or holding up portraits of Soleimani and Muhandis. Nasrallah also called on Iraq to free itself of the American "occupation". "Our demand, our hope from our brothers in the Iraqi parliament is... to adopt a law that demands American forces withdraw from Iraq," he said.Iraq's parliament urged the government on Sunday to end the presence of US-led coalition forces in the country, outraged by the American strike. Some 5,200 US soldiers are stationed across Iraqi bases to support local troops preventing a resurgence of the Islamic State jihadist group. They are deployed as part of the broader international coalition, invited by the Iraqi government in 2014 to help fight IS.

Conor Lally - irishtimes.com -- Hundreds of Irish troops serving on a United Nations mission in south Lebanon were bracing this weekend for potential exchanges of fire between Hizbullah and Israel as the fallout continues from the killing of General Qassem Suleimani by a US military drone. Almost 350 Irish troops are serving with Unifil in south Lebanon at present, in the middle of the conflict zone, should strikes occur as feared. Neither the Defence Forces nor Minister of State for Defence Paul Kehoe had made any comment early on Sunday. However, The Irish Times understands the threat level has not been officially increased by Unifil despite the events of last Friday. Iranian military commander Suleimani and Iraqi militia leader Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis were both killed in the US drone strike on a convoy leaving Baghdad International Airport. Though there had been no official increase by Unifil to the threat level posed to the Irish and other Unifil personnel in south Lebanon, the troops were in recent days undertaking bunker drills and defence drills to ensure their state of preparedness was sharp.

Sources said in the event of rocket fire, the majority of Unifil personnel, including 336 Irish troops, would remain in bunkers for their own safety. There were now concerns that US assets and US allies in the region would be attacked in revenge for last Friday’s strike, with Hizbullah rocket attacks from southern Lebanon into northern Israel seen as possible within days. Any attacks by Hizbullah would probably take the form of Katyusha rockets being launched from south Lebanon into northern Israel, and the Israelis would launch much larger retaliatory strikes, the sources said.

By Eric Knecht, Reuters News ---  BEIRUT - Lebanon needs a $20 billion-$25 billion bailout including International Monetary Fund support to emerge from its financial crisis, former economy minister Nasser Saidi told Reuters on Friday. Lebanon's crisis has shattered confidence in its banking system and raised investors' concerns that a default could loom for one of the world's most indebted countries, with a $1.2 billion Eurobond due in March. Lebanon's politicians have failed to come up with a rescue plan since Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri quit in October after protests over state corruption. Depositors and investors say they have been kept in the dark about the country's dire financial situation.

President Michel Aoun said on Friday that he hoped a new government would be formed next week. But analysts say the cabinet to be led by Hassan Diab may struggle to win international support because he was nominated by the Iranian-backed Hezbollah group and its allies. Saidi said time was running short, and that $11 billion in previously pledged support from foreign donors was now roughly half of what was needed to mount a recovery. "The danger of the current situation is we're approaching economic collapse that can potentially reduce GDP (for 2020) by 10%," Saidi said in an interview. Economists have said 2020 is likely to register Lebanon's first economic contraction in 20 years, with some saying GDP will contract by 2%. Others have predicted a long depression unseen since independence from France in 1943 or during the 1975-90 civil war.

by reuters -- President Donald Trump on Saturday threatened to hit 52 Iranian sites "very hard" if Iran attacks Americans or U.S. assets after a drone strike that killed Iranian military commander Qassem Soleimani and an Iraqi militia leader, while tens of thousands of people marched in Iraq to mourn their deaths. Showing no signs of seeking to ease tensions raised by the strike he ordered that killed Soleimani and Iranian-backed Iraqi militia leader Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis at Baghdad airport, Trump issued a stern threat to Iran on Twitter. The U.S. strike has raised the specter of wider conflict in the Middle East. Iran, Trump wrote, "is talking very boldly about targeting certain USA assets" in response to Soleimani's death. Trump said the United States has "targeted 52 Iranian sites" and that some were "at a very high level & important to Iran & the Iranian culture, and those targets, and Iran itself, WILL BE HIT VERY FAST AND VERY HARD." "The USA wants no more threats!" Trump said, adding that the 52 targets represented the 52 Americans who were held hostage in Iran for 444 days after being seized at the U.S. embassy in Tehran in November 1979. Trump did not identify the sites. The Pentagon referred questions about the matter to the White House, which did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Among the mourners in Iraq included many militiamen in uniform for whom Muhandis and Soleimani were heroes. They carried portraits of both men and plastered them on walls and armored personnel carriers in the procession. Chants of "Death to America" and "No No Israel" rang out.