Most of the protesters, members of the
paramilitary group Hashd al-Shaabi (Popular Mobilisation Forces, or PMF), were
clad in military fatigues. PMF is an umbrella organisation of several armed
militia groups - including Kataib Hezbollah - funded and armed by Iran, but
with formal links to the Iraqi armed forces. Shouting "Down, Down
USA!", the crowd hurled rocks and water bottles and vandalised security
cameras outside the embassy grounds.
The US
said it launched the attacks on Sunday - killing at least 25 fighters - in Iraq
and Syria in response to a rocket attack on Friday near Kirkuk, which killed an
American civilian contractor - an assault Washington blamed on Kataib
Hezbollah.
Iraqi
caretaker Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi warned the protesters to leave the
compound in an effort to bring the increasingly volatile situation under
control. But Mahdi's warning appeared to have come too late.
Government
security forces did not block militia members and their leaders from entering
the heavily fortified Green Zone where the US embassy is located, a sign that
the Iraqi government may not have full control over the current events.
With
US personnel holed up at the embassy and exposed to risk, President Donald
Trump issued a stern warning to Iran and Iraq, writing on Twitter: "Iran
has orchestrated the attack on the US embassy in Baghdad". He warned the
US would "hold Iran for responsible" for the rapidly unfolding events
in the Iraqi capital.
A US
government official told Al Jazeera, on the condition of anonymity because he
was not authorised to speak to the media, that "we are not going to mess
around" in terms of protecting US personnel and facilities. He also said
the Iraqi government was obliged under international law to protect the
embassy.
Doug
Bandow, research fellow at the Cato Institute in Washington, DC, told Al
Jazeera that US and Iraqi officials were unprepared for the tensions. Bandow,
who served as special assistant to US President Ronald Reagan, criticised the
Trump administration for its "lack of good intelligence and
understanding" of current Iraqi politics.
"The
Trump administration has also poisoned its relations with Iran, which is the
key player in Iraq, when it pulled out of a landmark nuclear agreement with
Tehran last year and imposed punishing sanctions against it," he said.
PJ
Crowley, former US assistant secretary of state for public affairs, said that
the Trump administration's strategy of ramping up political and economic
pressure on Tehran - in the hope of bringing the Islamic Republic's leaders to
the negotiating table to agree to another nuclear agreement - has for two years
yielded no results. Crowley proposed that the larger issue should be about
"shifting the focus from what the US is doing in Iraq to what Iran is
doing".
Memories of Iran in 1979: Bandow
argued that US leaders should be feeling nervous because Iraq now has a weak
and "headless" government, a political environment similar to Iran in
1979 when a group of Iranian students took over the US embassy in Tehran and
held 52 American citizens and diplomats hostage for 440 days.
More
recently in 2012, a Libyan armed group stormed a US compound amid political
vacuum and chaos resulted in two US personnel being killed, including the US
ambassador to Libya. Bandow said however that the Hashd al-Shaabi militia and
their sponsors in Tehran understand the risks of escalating the confrontation,
because they realise they would lose in a military showdown. The near-future,
he said, "depends on how the Iraqi government manages the current
crisis".
Hundreds
of protesters surrounded the United States embassy in Baghdad on Tuesday to
demand an end to US "intervention" in the country. Raising flags of
the powerful paramilitary group Hashd al-Shaabi (Popular Mobilization Forces),
the crowds chanted "down, down USA".
Tuesday's
rally was completely distinct from the recent, months-long protest movement
which has seen tens of thousands of Iraqis demonstrate against the political
establishment. Most at the US embassy, supporters of the Hashd Al-Shaabi, were
dressed in army fatigues as they gathered around the heavily fortified embassy
in the Green Zone, where government buildings and foreign embassies in Baghdad
are based, arguing in favour of a state-backed militia.
Within
hours, dozens had broken into the embassy compound after smashing a main door
and setting fire to the reception area, according to witnesses. Protesters told
Al Jazeera that they stormed the embassy in response to US air attacks over
Kataib Hezbollah positions in Iraq and Syria.
At
least 25 members of Kataib Hezbollah forces, which belongs to the PMF, were
killed and 51 others were injured in the attacks on Sunday. The US said it
launched the air attacks in retaliation to a rocket attack on Friday near
Kirkuk - a raid that killed an American civilian contractor, and that
Washington blamed on Kataib Hezbollah.
"We
are the Hashd and we are here to take revenge," said a protester in his
40s, who refused to give his name for security reasons. "We [are]
protesting here to condemn the US strikes on the Hashd," said Haydar, a
protester in his 20s. "The Hashd are the ones who protected Iraq against
terrorism." The Iran-backed Shia paramilitary group was aligned with the
Iraqi government in its battle against the ISIL (ISIS) group. It was formally
incorporated into the Iraqi military in July 2019.
As the
sun set on Baghdad, members of the crowd told Al Jazeera they would try to
erect tents for the night and that they were prepared to launch an open-ended
sit-in around the embassy until they saw action taken to "end US presence
and intervention in the country".
"We
call on the Iraqi parliament to take action against the US. We want the
Americans out," said Haydar. Ali, who described himself as a PMF
supporter, said: "We came to mourn the people who died as a result of the
US strikes in Qaim and to condemn the source [US] of all evil in Iraq since
2003. "We
are here because we are against US presence in Iraq and its targeting of the
Hashd al-Shaabi and we won't leave until parliament and the government puts an
end to that."
