By Jubin Katiraie
Anti-government protests started again in Iraq as hundreds of demonstrators clashed with security forces in Baghdad on Sunday. The protests follow the appointment of Mustafa al-Kadhimi as Prime Minister, bringing an end to months of relative calm.
Iraqi protesters continued their nightly demonstrations against the corrupt rulers and puppets of Velayat-e-Faqih (Iran’s clerical regime) in Baghdad’s Tahrir Square and in the provinces of Dhi Qar, Diwaniyah, Basra, Babil, Karbala, Wasit, Maysan and other cities. They called for the overthrow of the government. The demonstrators also chanted slogans against Muqtada al-Sadr and Hadi Ameri, and chanted slogans against the Iranian regime’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.
In Wasit province, protesters announced that the governor’s office would be closed at the behest of the people. They gathered around the governor’s office to celebrate their victory. In Maysan province, the revolting people have declared that governors and government officials have no right to enter any government or non-governmental office.
In Basra, the Iranian regime’s mercenaries, known as Sar-Allah, opened fire on protesters. The protesting youth confronted them.
In Baghdad’s Tahrir Square, protesters demanded the trial of Adel Abdul-Mahdi, saying he was responsible for killing more than 700 Iraqi women and men and injuring more than 30,000 others in attacks carried out by repressive government agencies. These are crimes against humanity, and he must be tried, they said.
Activists of the Iraqi revolution called the demonstrations a revolution of the hungry. In Baghdad, angry youths took control of all the embankments on the Jomhouri Bridge and near the Green Zone. In Najaf and Diwaniyah, they blocked roads with burning tires.
In Baghdad, protesters gathered in Tahrir Square, the center of the Iraqi protests, and began crossing the Jomhuri Bridge to the Green Zone, the headquarters of the Iraqi government and the foreign embassies’ center. Meanwhile, security forces fired tear gas at them and prevented them from advancing.
Iraqi protesters have expressed outrage at criminal gangs affiliated with the Iranian regime by setting fire to their headquarters and centers. On Saturday night in the province of Wasit, insurgent youths set fire to the headquarters of the Badr Corps and the Dawa Party which is affiliated with the Iranian regime.
They also attacked and set fire to the headquarters of a member of the Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq affiliated with the Iranian regime’s Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) Quds force which is designated as a terror group by the US government and whose leader Qasem Soleimani was killed in a US drone attack near Baghdad airport earlier this year.
Protesters took to the streets in Babil province (100 km south of Baghdad) chanting slogans calling for reform and the overthrow of the regime. But in Wasit province (160 km south of Baghdad), protests erupted in violence, and protesters in the border province of Iran set fire to Shiite party headquarters last night, including the Badr Organization led by Hadi al-Amiri and Dawa Party led by Nouri al-Maliki and Asaib Ahl al-Haq led the Qais al-Khazali.
The demonstrators said in a statement that they intended to overthrow the corrupt quota system. They stressed that from the beginning today, the local political structure of Wasit province, namely the structure of killing and corruption and thieves, was overthrown.
The popular protests that began last October were halted in March due to precautionary measures to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, which led to a ban on traffic.
Iraq has witnessed a widespread uprising since October 2019 to protest the Iranian regime’s influence in Iraq and the spread of corruption in all walks of life.
The Iraqi government, with the help of Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), known in Arabic as the “Al-Hashad al-Shaabi” militias, violently opposed the protests and killed hundreds of people and injured thousands.
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