14 killed by Iraqi security
BAGHDAD: Iraqi security forces killed at least 14 people in the Shi’ite holy city of Kerbala overnight after opening fire on protesters, medical and security sources said yesterday, in a return to tactics denounced by the Government’s own internal inquiry.
At least 865 people were wounded, the sources said. Three protesters died in the southern city of Nassiriya from wounds sustained in earlier protests.
However, Kerbala’s health department chief said 122 people were injured, including 66 members of the security forces.
Kerbala’s police chief denied any protesters had been killed and said only one person had died in an unrelated criminal incident, calling footage of security forces shooting at protesters that went viral on social media fabricated and designed to ‘‘incite the street’’ in the city.
Despite promising reforms and ordering a broad reshuffle of the cabinet, Prime Minister Adel Abdul
Mahdi, whose position is increasingly precarious in the face of the stiffest challenge since he took office a year ago, has so far struggled to address the demonstrators’ complaints.
A spokesman for Abdul Mahdi said on Monday that anyone disrupting work or school days would be severely punished.
An Iraqi government committee investigating the first wave of unrest, which took place during the first week of October, found that 149 civilians were killed because security forces used excessive force and live fire to quell protests.
Its report, which said more than 70% of the deaths were caused by shots to the head or chest, held senior commanders responsible but stopped short of blaming the prime minister and other top officials, saying there had been no order to shoot.
Authorities committed serious human rights violations and abuses, the United Nations mission in Iraq said.
Protests stopped for two weeks before resuming on Friday.
Security forces fired tear gas yesterday at school and university students who defied a warning from Abdul Mahdi and joined thousands in Baghdad protesting against his government.
Soldiers were seen beating high school pupils with batons in two Baghdad districts. A Defence Ministry statement condemned the incident.
Populist Shi’ite cleric Moqtada alSadr, who backs parliament’s largest bloc and helped bring Abdul Mahdi’s fragile coalition government to power, called yesterday for early elections after a curfew was announced in Baghdad. Baghdad’s top military commander imposed the curfew from midnight until 6am effective ‘‘until further notice’’, state television said, but protesters in the capital’s central Tahrir Square remained defiant.
The curfew provided cover for security forces to clear the square, demonstrators said, but they intended to go nowhere. — Reuters