Police kill 23 at Baghdad protest

BAGHDAD — Iraqi police fired live shots into the air as well as rubber bullets and dozens of tear gas canisters Friday to disperse thousands of antigovernment protesters, sending young demonstrators running for cover and enveloping a main bridge in the capital Baghdad with thick white smoke. Twentythree protesters were killed and dozens were injured, security officials said.

The confrontations began early in the morning after antigovernment demonstrations resumed, following a threeweek hiatus. The protests began Oct. 1 over corruption, unemployment and lack of basic services but quickly turned deadly as security forces cracked down, using live ammunition for days.

The protests then spread to several, mainly Shiitepopulated southern provinces and authorities imposed a curfew and shut down the internet for days in an effort to quell the unrest.

After a week of violence in the capital and the country’s southern provinces, a governmentappointed inquiry into the protests determined that security forces had used excessive force, killing 149 people and wounding over 3,000. It also recommended the firing of security chiefs in Baghdad and the south. Eight members of the security forces were also killed.

The protests are economically driven, largely leaderless and spontaneous against a sectarianbased system and a corrupt political class that has ruled for decades.

The protests threaten to plunge the country into a new cycle of instability that potentially could be the most dangerous this conflictscarred nation has faced.