Iraqi protesters wave national flags as they gather in the courtyard of celebrations after breaking into Baghdad’s heavily fortified “Green Zone” on April 30, 2016.
Advertisement
Supporters of Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr have been holding demonstrations and sit-ins for months to demand an overhaul of Iraq’s corrupt and ineffective political system, but Saturday was the first time they broke into the Green Zone, home to most government ministries and foreign embassies.
The unrest raised doubts about the political stability of Iraq and occurred at a fragile moment when the government of Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi is struggling to mount an effective counteroffensive against Islamic State forces occupying the nation’s second-largest city, Mosul.
The Pentagon has no plans to heighten security or move USA troops in Baghdad after protesters loyal to Shiite Muslim leader Muqtada al-Sadr breached the Green Zone over the weekend to demand political reform, Capt. Jeff Davis said Monday.
Iraqi President Fuad Masum called on protesters to evacuate the building and said politicians needed to implement the new cabinet and fight corruption.
The source also said that when al-Sadr made a decision to withdraw his bloc’s MPs from the parliament members’ protests, he left the parliament confused between the legitimacy of its ousted President Salim al-Jabouri and the legitimacy of the protesters, who chose Adnan al-Janabi to be their temporary President being the oldest among them.
Assadi said it was striking “how rich this place is”.
Baghdad Operations Command confirmed that additional security forces were deployed Saturday to the Green Zone after protesters breached its walls. While al-Sadr didn’t call for an escalation to the protests, shortly after his remarks his supporters began scaling the compound’s walls.
Iraqi officials denied the group’s claim that the attack was carried out by a suicide bomber.
Videos on social media had showed a group of young men surrounding and slapping two Iraqi lawmakers as they attempted to flee the crowd, while other protesters mobbed lawmakers’ motorcades.
“Abadi’s most hard task is that none of those political parties is willing to easily lose its gains”. He is just very weak. “It is time to make three regions in Iraq”, he said.
The extremist group on Saturday claimed responsibility for a truck bombing at a busy market southeast of Baghdad that killed at least 21 people and injured dozens more.
Local security and medical officials put the death toll at 33 and said at least 50 other people were wounded.
Al-Sadr was born into a family of Shiite scholars, the fourth son of the Grand Ayatollah Mohammad Sadaq al-Sadr, a highly influential cleric who was murdered along with two of his sons in 1999 during the rule of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.
Advertisement
The attack follows a Baghdad vehicle bombing on Saturday that killed at least 20 people, a pair of bombs that killed at least 38 people in al-Samaway City on Sunday and a planted bomb explosion that killed one on Sunday in the capital.
