With cries of ‘Death to America, death to Israel,’ protesters vent their anger over US attacks on Kataeb Hezbollah group, seen as violation of Iraqi sovereignty
By QASSIM ABDUL-ZAHRA, TOI Today, 12:12 pm
Iraqis step on a US national flag on December 30, 2019, during a demonstration in the holy shrine city of Najaf to denounce the previous night’s attacks by US planes on several bases belonging to the Iran-backed Kateb Hezbollah militia. (Haidar HAMDANI/AFP)
BAGHDAD (AP) — Dozens of angry Iraqi Shiite militia supporters broke into the US Embassy compound in Baghdad on Tuesday after smashing a main door and setting fire to a reception area, prompting tear gas and sounds of gunfire.
An Associated Press reporter at the scene saw flames rising from inside the compound and at least three US soldiers on the roof of the main building. There was a fire at the reception area near the parking lot of the compound but it was unclear what had caused it. A man on a loudspeaker urged the mob not to enter the compound, saying: “The message was delivered.”
The embassy attack followed deadly US airstrikes on Sunday that killed 25 fighters of the Iran-backed militia in Iraq, the Kataeb Hezbollah. The US military said it was in retaliation for last week’s killing of an American contractor in a rocket attack on an Iraqi military base that it had blamed on the militia.
Dozens of protesters pushed into the compound after smashing the gate used by cars to enter the embassy. The protesters, many in militia uniform, stopped in a corridor after about 5 meters (16 feet), and were only about 200 meters away from the main building. Half a dozen US soldiers were seen on the roof of the main building, their guns were pointed at the protesters.
Smoke from the tear gas rose in the area, and at least three of the protesters appeared to have difficulty breathing. It wasn’t immediately known whether the embassy staff had remained inside the main building.
The protesters hung a poster on the wall: “America is an aggressor.”
Earlier, the mob shouted “Down, down USA!” as the crowd tried to push inside the embassy grounds, hurling water and stones over its walls. They raised yellow militia flags and taunted the embassy’s security staff, who remained behind the glass windows in the gates’ reception area, and also sprayed graffiti on the wall and windows. The graffiti, in red in support of the Kataeb Hezbollah, read: “Closed in the name of the resistance.”
Also, hundreds of angry protesters set up tents outside the embassy. As tempers rose, the mob set fire to three trailers used by security guards along the embassy wall. No one was immediately reported hurt in the rampage and security staff had withdrawn to inside the embassy earlier, soon after protesters gathered outside.
Seven armored vehicles with about 30 Iraqi soldiers arrived near the embassy hours after the violence erupted, deploying near the embassy walls but not close to the breached area.
There was no immediate comment from the Pentagon and the State Department on the breach of the US Embassy in Baghdad.
The US airstrikes — the largest targeting an Iraqi state-sanctioned militia in recent years — and the subsequent calls by the militia for retaliation, represent a new escalation in the proxy war between the US and Iran playing out in the Middle East.
Tuesday’s embassy storming took place after mourners and supporters held funerals for the militia fighters killed in a Baghdad neighborhood, after which they marched on to the heavily fortified Green Zone and kept walking till they reached the sprawling US Embassy there.
AP journalists saw the crowd as they tried to scale the walls of the embassy in what appeared to be an attempt to storm it, shouting “Down, down USA!” and “Death to America” and “Death to Israel.”
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Sunday’s strikes send the message that the US will not tolerate actions by Iran that jeopardize American lives.
The Iranian-backed Iraqi militia had vowed Monday to retaliate for the US military strikes. The attack and vows for revenge raised concerns of new attacks that could threaten American interests in the region.
The US attack also outraged both the militias and the Iraqi government, which said it will reconsider its relationship with the US-led coalition — the first time it has said it will do so since an agreement was struck to keep some US troops in the country. It called the attack a “flagrant violation” of its sovereignty.
In a partly televised meeting Monday, Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi told Cabinet members that he had tried to stop the US operation “but there was insistence” from American officials.
The US military said “precision defensive strikes” were conducted against five sites of Kataeb Hezbollah, or Hezbollah Brigades in Iraq and Syria. The group, which is a separate force from the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, operates under the umbrella of the state-sanctioned militias known collectively as the Popular Mobilization Forces. Many of them are supported by Iran.
Trump finds himself in a tough position now. He campaigned on getting out of wars. So he will find that actually he will need to fight Iran and its proxies or cut and run.
The US has only about 5000 soldiers in Iraq. It has powerful air assets in the area.
Shia militia (Iran proxies in part) have about 100,000 fighters. The US military and Trump administration’s resolve not to back down Iran will be tested.
The US air force hit 5 bases of Shia militia 2 in Syria and 3 in Iraq. The US will need to do much more than that as its military and diplomatic locations in the area likely will be attacked in one form or the other. The US administration has allowed numerous attacks against its locations without a military response until the last that killed a contractor plus wounded three servicemen.
The only true message that will work is not just military responses to the Iranian proxies but a large scale air and naval attack on Iran IRGC bases in Iran plus destruction of the nuclear facilities. Make the attack so devastating that the people of Iran have the opportunity to push the current Islamic regime out of power.
If this is not done Iran is very willing to engage in a long term war of attrition, especially if its proxies and not Iranians are the ones suffering and getting killed.
So much for our invading Iraq, thousands of casualties, and what did we gain? Another error of President Bush.