Four rockets landed in Baghdad’s Green Zone on Tuesday, damaging a residential area, Iraqi security forces said. The area, one of the focal points of the current protests, brings together ministries and foreign missions in the country and is the seat of government buildings.
Supporters of powerful Shiite Muslim cleric Moqtada al-Sadr stormed government headquarters on Monday in reaction to an announcement that he was leaving political life. Protesters had been camped in the area for weeks, amid a crisis that has dragged on for months and is now culminating in Baghdad’s worst-case violence in years.
The invasion was just one of the acts of the protesters. Protests by pro-Sadr groups took over the entire city on Monday, and the groups clashed with central government-backed Shi’ite forces, leaving 22 dead and dozens injured.
On Tuesday, after the rockets fell in the Green Zone, Sadr apologized for the deaths and gave his followers an ultimatum to end the protests within an hour. “This is not a revolution because it has lost its peaceful character,” the cleric said in a televised speech. “Iraqi bloodshed is prohibited.”
As the deadline drew to a close, the cleric’s supporters began dismantling their tents and rolling up mattresses in preparation for leaving the Green Zone.
Due to the crisis, Iraq was since Monday under a curfew decreed by the government – this Tuesday, the restriction was lifted by the security forces. In addition, the border with Iran, which had been closed, was reopened, and flights between neighboring countries resumed.
The outbreak this week now comes in response to a stalemate that has lasted ten months and has given Iraq its longest period without an established government. Sadr has not been able to assemble a government since last October, when his party won elections without an absolute majority in parliament.
In June, he withdrew all his representatives from parliament after failing to exclude his rivals – backed by Tehran – from negotiations. In the midst of the crisis, he insisted on the dissolution of Parliament and early elections. He says no politician who has been in power since the US invasion in 2003 can hold office.
Sadr is one of the few people in Iraq — apart from Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, a major Shi’ite religious authority — capable of mobilizing large masses. He has millions of followers, a militia and a financial empire.
