Iraqi factions threatening to oust US troops, officials denouncing American "violations" and fears of a new Gulf war: a US strike has catapulted Iraq back to the tumultuous aftermath of the 2003 invasion.

The precision drone strike outside Baghdad airport on Friday killed top Iranian commander Qasem Soleimani and his Iraqi right-hand-man, Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis.

Within hours, United Nations chief Antonio Guterres urged leaders to exercise restraint.

"The world cannot afford another war in the Gulf," he said.

The US attack was the most dramatic escalation yet in a feared proxy war between Iran and the US on Iraqi soil.

It also opened the door to fierce criticism of the US, harkening back to the years following the American-led invasion that toppled ex-dictator Saddam Hussein.

"The narrative of anti-Americanism is coming back," said Renad Mansour of the London-based Chatham House.

"America hasn't done something this aggressive in a while, so it has brought back memories of the American military occupation of Iraq, as well as the same language and discourse," he told AFP.

Iraq's premier, Adel Abdel Mahdi, condemned the strike as a violation of Iraqi sovereignty and of the US military's mandate in the country.

Around 5,200 American forces are deployed across Iraq to train and advise local troops targeting the remnants of the Islamic State group.

Pro-Iran factions had for months been urging parliament to revoke the bilateral agreement allowing US troops in Iraq, and Mansour said the strike could bolster their argument.

"They tried to use anti-Americanism before but no one really bought it. Now, it feels like they have more ammunition and justification to make anti-Americanism a bigger narrative," he told AFP.

- 'Compulsory solidarity' -

Indeed, top officials in the Hashed al-Shaabi, a network of mostly pro-Iran groups incorporated into the state, swiftly began calling for the departure of US forces.

Leading Hashed member Hadi al-Ameri urged lawmakers "to take a bold decision to oust foreign troops from Iraq, because their presence has become a threat for Iraqis".

Firebrand cleric Moqtada Sadr swiftly reactivated his Mahdi Army, the notorious militia that fought US troops after the invasion but which was dissolved nearly a decade ago.

Qais al-Khazali, a US-sanctioned paramilitary leader, also called on his fighters to "be ready" following the strike.

And Kataeb Hezbollah, a hardline Hashed faction, predicted that the deadly raid would ring in "the beginning of the end for the US presence in Iraq and the region".

Less than a week earlier, the US had killed 25 Kataeb Hezbollah fighters in retaliatory bombings for the death of an American contractor in northern Iraq.

In response, streams of Hashed supporters laid siege to the US embassy in Baghdad this week.

Even Iraqi figures known not to back the Hashed, including top Shiite cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani and President Barham Saleh, condemned the strike publicly.

"Some think today's hit clips Iran's wings in Iraq. The opposite is more likely," wrote Fanar Haddad of Singapore University's Middle East Centre.

"Iraqi political classes are likely to align more strongly with Iran due to compulsory solidarity and some indignation," he said.

The Iraqi premier said Muhandis -- who was deputy head of Hashed and therefore a government official -- would be mourned in an official funeral procession on Saturday.

Iraqi state television reported a further US strike in Baghdad on Saturday morning, targeting a convoy belonging to the Hashed al-Shaabi, but there was no immediate comment from Washington.

- US 'neither cares nor matters' -

Analyst Nick Heras said targeting the Hashed could have "significant ramifications" for US-Iraqi ties.

"It means that the United States is engaged in a conflict with a component of the state-sanctioned Iraqi security forces," he warned.

Pro-Iran factions "now have a political and government wing, media outlets, money, relations, experience, arms, human resources and a supportive public", said specialist Hisham al-Hashemi.

As a result, Washington felt it was "no longer the most powerful actor in Iraq" and sought to regain leverage through the "adventurous policy" of the Soleimani strike, he said.

Ramzy Mardini of the US Institute of Peace said the crisis may have been caused by a "miscalculation" on both sides, with the US overestimating the threat to its embassy.

"Tehran did not appreciate that the threat of another Iranian hostage crisis would change the rules of American engagement," Mardini said, referring to the 1979 storming of the US embassy in Tehran.

The US action also frustrated traditional allies as it was launched with little coordination or advance warning, according to diplomatic sources in Baghdad.

Iraq's parliament will hold an emergency session Sunday, with lawmakers threatening to call for the ouster of US troops.

"Iraqis realise that the US isn't a long-term ally -- it neither cares nor matters," said Mansour.

They see a US administration without a cohesive objective while Iran's policy is more fixed.

"There used to be a debate about who has influence, the US or Iran? Now no one is even asking -- Iran has the clear advantage."

Iraq could 'pay price' for US strike on Iran commander: analysts
Baghdad (AFP) Jan 3, 2020 - The killings of Iranian commander Qasem Soleimani and a top Iraqi paramilitary chief in a US strike on Baghdad Friday threaten to drag Iraq into the abyss of regional conflict, analysts warned.

The US strike on Baghdad international airport targeted a convoy carrying Soleimani and the deputy head of Iraq's powerful Hashed al-Shaabi force, Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis.

The raid has confirmed the worst fears of many Iraqis -- that their homeland will become the main battlefield in a looming conflict between Iran and the United States.

Slamming the strike as an "aggression," Iraq's caretaker prime minister Adel Abdel Mahdi said it would "spark a devastating war in Iraq."

Fanar Haddad of Singapore University's Middle East Institute said: "Iran's strongest cards are in Iraq, and I think that Iraq will pay the price for this."

Tensions between the United States and Iran have been rising for months, as Washington accused Tehran-backed factions of firing rockets on their troops across Iraq and on their embassy in Baghdad.

But they have soared over the past week.

On December 27, a rocket attack killed a US contractor working in northern Iraq, prompting retaliatory US strikes that killed 25 fighters from Kataeb Hezbollah, a hardline Hashed faction.

Angry Hashed supporters laid siege to the US embassy as Washington announced hundreds of new US troops were en route to the region.

- Path to war? -

But Washington delivered its most decisive blow yet early Friday when a volley of strikes hit near Baghdad international airport, leaving two cars torched on the access highway.

Iran's Revolutionary Guards confirmed Soleimani was killed in the strike, while the Hashed announced Muhandis's death.

With the two dead, the Quds Force -- the Guards' foreign operations arm -- has been left decapitated and the Hashed lost its de facto chief, too.

Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei vowed "severe revenge" for the raid and its top security body was meeting to discuss options.

Analysts said the outbreak of a wider conflict was looking increasingly likely.

"If Iran does need to respond and make a performance out of this, the fear is that there will be something more than just loading rockets at embassies," said Haddad.

"It could set Iraq along the path of internal conflict and that's something Iran can very easily instigate," he said.

The nature of the strike is unpredecented because of the seniority of those targeted -- making its repercussions hard to picture, said Ramzy Mardini, a researcher at the US Institute of Peace.

"The problem with judging what happens next is a problem of imagination. Nobody thought this was in the realm of possibility," he told AFP.

"It's likely that all actors on all sides will be playing things by ear in the short term, which is a recipe for miscalculation," said Mardini.

- 'Heads will roll' -

Friday's strike had shown that Iran could no longer use its allies in Iraq to carry out attacks against US interests "without risking an American conventional retaliation on Iran," Mardini told AFP.

"Plausible deniability has gone out the window."

The US had expressed increasing frustration with the escalating rocket attacks on its 5,200 troops in Iraq and on its embassy in Baghdad.

US forces led the 2003 invasion against then-dictator Saddam Hussein and Washington has worked closely with Iraqi officials and commanders since then.

But its influence has waned compared with that of Iran, which carefully crafted personal ties with Iraqi politicians and armed factions, even during Saddam's reign.

Soleimani was the prime example, sweeping into Baghdad regularly to hold meeting with top Iraqi officials during times of turmoil.

Ranj Alaaldin, a fellow at the Brookings Institution in Doha, said that would leave Iran with a range of questions for its Iraqi partners.

"How did the US know of Soleimani's arrival in Baghdad? Who leaked the intel?" Alaaldin tweeted.

"Watch the Iraqi political space. Heads will roll."

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Pro-Iran protesters leave US embassy in Baghdad
Baghdad (AFP) Jan 1, 2020
Pro-Iran demonstrators left the besieged US embassy in Baghdad on Wednesday after the Hashed al-Shaabi paramilitary force ordered them to withdraw a day after their dramatic incursion. Thousands of Iraqi supporters of the largely Iranian-trained Hashed had encircled and vandalised the embassy compound Tuesday, outraged by US air strikes that killed 25 Hashed fighters over the weekend. They marched unimpeded through the checkpoints of the usually high-security Green Zone to the embassy gates, whe ... read more