Baghdad burns, death toll climbs
Iraqis protesting against corruption and unemployment defy curfew, clash with security forces
BAGHDAD: The death toll from mass rallies in Iraq against corruption and unemployment rose to 21 on Thursday, as the leaderless protest movement spread to virtually all of the south.
Braving live fire, tear gas and local curfews, Iraqis flooded the streets for a third day in the biggest challenge yet to Prime Minister Adel Abdel Mahdi.
The embattled premier ordered a ban on all movement across the capital starting at 5 am local time, but dozens of protesters defied the order and gathered in Baghdad’s emblematic Tahrir (Liberation) Square. “We slept here so the police don’t take the place,” one demonstrator told AFP before riot police fired into the air in a bid to disperse them.
The protests began in Baghdad on Tuesday but have since spread to cities across the mainly Shia south. On Thursday, medics and security sources told AFP that four protesters were shot dead in the southern city of Amarah and another in the province of Dhi Qar. The new deaths bring the overall toll from three days of demonstrations to 21.
More than 600 protesters and security personnel have been wounded.
Tensions have been exacerbated by a near-total internet blackout, the closure of government offices in Baghdad and calls by firebrand cleric Moqtada al-sadr for “a general strike.”
Before dawn twin explosions hit the Green Zone, where some ministries and embassies are located and which was struck by two rockets last week, a security source in the area told AFP.
The apparent attack came hours after security forces sealed off the compound “until further notice” just a few months after reopening it to the public, fearing angry protesters would overrun it.
Dozens of university graduates unable to find jobs in the corruption-plagued but oil-rich country have also joined the rallies. Politicians denounced the violence and at least one, influential Shia cleric Muqtada al-sadr, called for an investigation.
On Wednesday, seven people were killed in clashes that spread across Iraq despite a massive security dragnet mounted by the government in an effort to quash the protests.