Protesters were also seen jumping and dancing on the parliament’s meeting hall tables and chairs and waving Iraqi flags.
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Hundreds of supporters of Shia Muslim cleric Moqtada al Sadr broke through barricades of the heavily-fortified Green Zone in protest at the government’s failure to stamp out corruption.
Protesters attached cables to the tops of heavy concrete blast walls that surround the Green Zone, pulling them down to create an opening.
The politicians “refused to end corruption and refused to end quotas”, Mr Al Sadr said in a speech in the holy city of Najaf, adding that he and his supporters would not participate in “any political process in which there is any type … of political party quotas”.
The first blast was near the provincial council building and the second one about 60 metres (yards) away at a bus station, a police colonel told Reuters. About a dozen people were wounded, police sources said.
A U.S. Embassy official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said staffers were not being evacuated from their compound, which is about a mile from the parliament building.
At least 33 people are killed and 50 others injured in two auto bombs in the southern Iraqi city of Samawa, security and medical officials say.
The extremists have repeatedly targeted Iraq’s Shiite majority – which they view as apostates – as well as the Shiite-dominated security forces.
Former Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, who opposes Abadi, criticised attempts to force reform “the under threat of weapons and by preventing the representatives of the people to enter the parliament”.
Storming parliament and the Green Zone, which houses ministries and foreign embassies, marks an escalation in a crisis that has undermined Prime Minister Haidar al-Abadi ‘s reform push and stymied efforts to defeat Islamic State militants.
Other videos showed a group of young men slapping an Iraqi politician as he attempted to flee the crowd, and protesters mobbing another politician’s motorcade inside the Green Zone. “This is your last day in the Green Zone”, shouted one protester as thousands broke in.
The crisis comes as the government is struggling to combat the Islamic State group – which still controls large areas in the north and west – and address an economic crisis largely brought on by lower oil prices.
The UN mission to Iraq said it was gravely concerned.
Iraqi parliament approves Abadi’s new government, three weeks after his predecessor reluctantly agreed to step aside.
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By nightfall, the protesters were leaving parliament and gathering in the Green Zone section called Celebration Square, an area with a statue of giant crossed swords that was once a parade ground for Saddam Hussein’s forces.
