The Shiite militia Hashd al-Shaabi has called on its members and supporters to withdraw from the US embassy in Baghdad. In front of the compound, a sit-in action had been going on after serious clashes with security forces.
The Shiite militia Hashd al-Shaabi (People's Mobilization Force) has called on its members and supporters to withdraw from the US embassy in Baghdad. The militia announced that the message of the demonstrators had reached the target.
For the second day in a row, clashes between demonstrators and security forces occurred in the vicinity of the US Embassy in the Iraqi capital on Wednesday. Several people had been injured by the use of tear gas, the Iraqi state news agency INA reported. The protesters then initiated a sit-in action outside the embassy compound.
A Hashd al-Shaabi spokesman spoke to AFP and said the following on the withdrawal of the protesters: "We have made a great success and achieved what no one before us has ever achieved. We have reached the gates of the US Embassy. Now the ball is at the wing of Parliament."
On Tuesday thousands of demonstrators had tried to storm the embassy grounds. In front of the complex, US flags were burned, surveillance cameras were torn down and "Death to the US" was shouted. The US Army reacted by, among other things, mobilizing two attack helicopters over the building in order to push the demonstrators back.
The riots were triggered by US air strikes against the Iranian-backed Shiite militia Kataib Hezbollah over the weekend, in which 25 fighters were killed, including several commanders. The US accuses the Hezbollah brigades, which are organised in the ranks of the Shiite militia alliance Hashd al-Shaabi, of a missile attack on a military base in northern Iraq in which a US civilian worker was killed and four US soldiers and two Iraqi security forces were injured on Friday.
