Pro-iranian protesters end siege

BAGHDAD — After a second day of tense protests at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, thousands of pro-iranian demonstrators dispersed Wednesday, ending a siege that had trapped U.S. diplomats in the embassy compound overnight and winding down a potentially explosive crisis for the Trump administration.

The demonstrators had swarmed outside the embassy, chanting “Death to America!” Some tried to scale the compound’s walls and others clambered onto the roof of the reception building they had burned the day before.

In contrast to Tuesday, when some demonstrators forced their way into the compound and set some of the outbuildings on fire, the crowd Wednesday was smaller and no protesters breached the compound’s gates.

When the demonstrators — largely members of Iranianbacked militias angered by deadly U.S. airstrikes over the weekend — reached the roof of the burned reception building Wednesday, U.S. security forces, including Marine reinforcements sent by the Pentagon the day before, fired tear gas to drive them back.

A few hours later, the militia leaders who had organized the demonstration called on the crowd to leave, and most gradually drifted away on foot or drove off in trucks.

The flare-up began with a rocket attack on an Iraqi military base Friday that killed an American contractor and wounded several Iraqi and U.S. service members. The U.S. blamed Kataib Hezbollah, an Iraqi militia with ties to Iran. The militia denied involvement.

U.S. forces carried out airstrikes Sunday on five sites controlled by the militia, in Syria and Iraq, killing at least two dozen people.