BAGHDAD: Iraqi youth angry at their government’s glacial pace of reform ramped up their protests on Sunday, sealing streets with burning tires and threatening further escalation unless their demands are met.
The rallies demanding an overhaul of the ruling system have rocked Shiite-majority parts of Iraq since October, but had thinned out in recent weeks amid rising Iran-US tensions.
Protesters had feared Iraq would be caught in the middle of the geopolitical storm and last Monday gave the government one week to make progress on reform pledges.
A day before the deadline expires, hundreds of angry young people descended on the main protest camp in Baghdad’s Tahrir Square as well as nearby Tayaran Square.
They burned tires to block highways and bridges, turning back cars and causing traffic jams across the city.
At least 10 people including police officers were wounded when security forces tried to clear the sit-ins with tear gas and protesters responded by throwing rocks, medical and security sources said.
“This is only the first escalation,” one protester with a scarf wrapped around his face said, as smoke from the tires turned the sky behind him a charcoal grey.
“We want to send a message to the government: Stop procrastinating! The people know what you’re doing,” he said, adding ominously: “Tomorrow the deadline ends, and then things could get totally of control.”
Protesters are demanding early elections based on a reformed voting law, a new prime minister to replace current caretaker premier Adel Abdel Mahdi and that officials deemed corrupt be held to account.
Abdel Mahdi resigned nearly two months ago, but political parties have thus far failed to agree on a successor and he has continued to run the government as a caretaker.
Demonstrators have publicly rejected the names circulating as possible replacements and are furious that other sweeping reform measures have not been implemented.
“We began to escalate today because the government did not respond to our demands, notably forming an independent government that could save Iraq,” said Haydar Kadhim, a demonstrator in the southern protest hotspot of Nasiriyah.
“Last Monday, we gave them a deadline of seven days. That deadline ends tonight,” Kadhim said.
A fellow protester, 20-year-old university student Mohammad Kareem, said more escalation could come.
“We gave the government a timeframe to implement our demands, but it looks like it doesn’t care one bit,” he said.
“We will keep up our movement and keep escalating to confront this government, which continues to procrastinate,” Kareem said.
Rallies also swelled in the cities of Kut, Diwaniyah and Amara, where most government offices, schools and universities have been shuttered for months.
In the holy city of Najaf, youth wrapped in checkered black-and-white scarves and carrying Iraqi flags lit tires and began a sit-in on a main road leading to the capital.
Further the south in the oil-rich port city of Basra, students gathered in an ongoing strike in support of the rallies elsewhere.
The protests are the largest and bloodiest grassroots movement in Iraq in decades, with nearly 460 people dead and over 25,000 wounded since they erupted on October 1.
While the violence at the protests themselves has dropped slightly, activists say they face an escalating campaign of intimidation, kidnapping and assassination attempts.
Young protesters are also apprehensive about a rival protest on January 24 organized by firebrand cleric Moqtada Sadr in order to pressure US forces to leave.
Last week, Sadr urged Iraqis to hold “a million-strong, peaceful, unified demonstration to condemn the American presence and its violations.”
Iraqi political figures have ramped up their calls for foreign forces — including some 5,200 US troops — to leave the country following a US drone strike that killed Iran’s revered Quds Force chief Qassem Soleimani and top Iraqi military official Abu Mahdi Al-Muhandis.
Both were key brokers in Iraq’s political scene, which has been left reeling by their absence.
Iraq’s parliament voted on January 5 in favor of ousting foreign forces but the legal procedure for doing so remains murky.
Bases where US forces are stationed have been under a steady stream of rocket attacks for several months that have killed one American contractor and one Iraqi soldier.
Iraq protests swell with youth angry at slow pace of reform
https://arab.news/8vyja
Iraq protests swell with youth angry at slow pace of reform
- Protesters fear Iraq would be caught in the middle of the geopolitical storm
- ‘We want to send a message to the government: Stop procrastinating! The people know what you’re doing’
Israel is trying to destabilize Lebanon and Syria, Arab League chief laments
- Israel’s resumption of targeted assassinations in Lebanon is an unacceptable and condemnable breach of the ceasefire agreement it signed with Lebanon late last year, Aboul Gheit said in a statement
CAIRO: Arab League Secretary-General Ahmed Aboul Gheit on Saturday accused Israel of trying to destabilize Syria and Lebanon through irresponsible military provocations, in “flagrant disregard for international legal norms.”
In a statement, Aboul Gheit lamented that global inaction has further emboldened the Zionist state.
“(T)he wars waged by Israel on the occupied Palestinian territories, Lebanon, and Syria have entered a new phase of complete recklessness, deliberately violating signed agreements, invading countries, and killing more civilians,” said the statement carried by the Saudi Press Agency.
He said Israel’s resumption of targeted assassinations in Lebanon is an unacceptable and condemnable breach of the ceasefire agreement it signed with Lebanon late last year.
Aboul Gheit suggested that Israel’s actions were driven by narrow domestic agendas at the expense of civilian lives and regional peace.
“It seems that the Israeli war machine does not want to stop as long as the occupation leaders insist on facing their internal crises by exporting them abroad, and this situation has become clear to everyone,” he said.
As per the Gaza Ministry of Health’s count last week, more than 50,000 people have been killed and over 113,200 wounded in Israeli attacks on Palestinian territories in retaliation against the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas surprise attack on southern Israel.
In Lebanon, war monitors have said at least 3,961 people were killed and at least 16,520, wounded in Israel’s war with the Iran-backed Hezbollah movement from October 8, 2023, to November 26, 2024.
Syria’s new government accused Israel on April 3 of mounting a deadly destabilization campaign after a wave of strikes on military targets, including an airport, and a ground incursion killed 13 people, in the southern province of Daraa.
Syrian government says studying Amnesty report on massacres
Damascus: Syria’s government said late Friday it was “closely following” the findings of a new Amnesty International report urging an investigation into sectarian massacres last month.
Amnesty called on the Syrian government in a report on Thursday to ensure accountability for the massacres targeting the Alawite minority, saying they may constitute war crimes.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor has said security forces and allied groups killed more than 1,700 civilians, mostly Alawites, during the violence.
Interim President Ahmed Al-Sharaa, whose Islamist group Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS) led the offensive that toppled longtime ruler Bashar Assad in December, has vowed to prosecute those responsible.
In a statement on Friday, the government said it had been “following closely the Amnesty report” and its “preliminary findings.”
“It is up to the Independent National Commission for Investigation and Fact-Finding to evaluate them, in accordance with the mandate, independence, and broad powers granted to it by presidential decree,” it said.
The Syrian authorities have accused armed Assad supporters of sparking the violence by attacking the new security forces.
The government on Friday complained the report failed to note “the broader context of the events.”
It said the violence began with a “premeditated assault” by the “remnants of the previous regime, targeting army and internal security personnel.”
In the ensuing chaos, “acts of retaliation and serious violations occurred,” it said, vowing that these would be investigated and a report issued within a month.
Red Cross warns of continued threat of landmines in Iraq
- Organization calls for greater effort to reduce contamination that spans 2,100 sq. km.
- More than 80 casualties recorded since 2023
LONDON: The International Committee of the Red Cross said on Friday that landmines and explosive remnants of war continue to pose a severe threat in Iraq, contaminating an estimated 2,100 sq. km.
In a statement issued to coincide with the International Day for Mine Awareness, the organization said landmines from past conflicts, including the Iran-Iraq War and the 2014–17 battle against Daesh, remained a major hazard.
The contamination had resulted in civilian casualties, forced displacement, restricted farmland access and slowed reconstruction efforts, it said.
Between 2023 and 2024, the ICRC recorded 78 casualties from landmines and remnants of war in Iraq. Earlier this year, three students were killed in an explosion in Abu Al-Khasib, Basra.
The ICRC has appealed for greater efforts to reduce contamination and support mine-affected communities. Clearance operations continue in cooperation with national authorities and humanitarian partners.
The call for action comes at a time when several NATO member states, namely Poland, Finland and the Baltic states, have signaled their intention to withdraw from the Ottawa Convention, the international treaty banning antipersonnel landmines. They cited the growing military threat from Russia as the reason for reconsidering the ban.
Meanwhile, the US, previously the largest funder of global mine clearance efforts, has cut back support due to a foreign aid review under the Trump administration.
Washington had contributed over $300 million annually, covering 40 percent of total international mine action funding, according to the 2024 Landmine Monitor report, which led to major clearance efforts in Iraq, Afghanistan and Laos.
A State Department official said last month that the US had restarted some global humanitarian demining programs but provided no details.
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Hamas says Israeli offensive in Gaza ‘highly dangerous’ for hostages
- “We have decided not to transfer these (hostages)... but (this situation) is highly dangerous to their lives,” said Abu Obeida
GAZA CITY: Hamas on Friday said Israel’s offensive in Gaza was creating a “highly dangerous” situation for the hostages held there, warning that half of the living captives were in areas where the army had ordered evacuations.
“Half of the living Israeli (hostages) are located in areas that the Israeli occupation army has requested to be evacuated in recent days,” Abu Obeida, spokesman for Hamas’s armed wing, said in a statement. “We have decided not to transfer these (hostages)... but (this situation) is highly dangerous to their lives.”
Kurdish fighters leave northern city in Syria as part of deal with central government
- The fighters left the predominantly Kurdish northern neighborhoods of Sheikh Maksoud and Achrafieh
- The deal is a boost to an agreement reached last month
ALEPPO, Syria: Scores of US-backed Kurdish fighters left two neighborhoods in the Syrian Arab Republic’s northern city of Aleppo Friday as part of a deal with the central government in Damascus, which is expanding its authority in the country.
The fighters left the predominantly Kurdish northern neighborhoods of Sheikh Maksoud and Achrafieh, which had been under the control of Kurdish fighters in Aleppo over the past decade.
The deal is a boost to an agreement reached last month between Syria’s interim government and the Kurdish-led authority that controls the country’s northeast. The deal could eventually lead to the merger of the main US-backed force in Syria into the Syrian army.
The withdrawal of fighters from the US-backed and Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces came a day after dozens of prisoners from both sides were freed in Aleppo, Syria’s largest city.
Syria’s state news agency, SANA, reported that government forces were deployed along the road that SDF fighters will use to move between Aleppo and areas east of the Euphrates River, where the Kurdish-led force controls nearly a quarter of Syria.
Sheikh Maksoud and Achrafieh had been under SDF control since 2015 and remained so even when forces of ousted President Bashar Assad captured Aleppo in late 2016. The two neighborhoods remained under SDF control when forces loyal to current interim President Ahmad Al-Sharaa captured the city in November, and days later captured the capital, Damascus, removing Assad from power.
After being marginalized for decades under the rule of the Assad family rule, the deal signed last month promises Syria’s Kurds “constitutional rights,” including using and teaching their language, which were banned for decades.
Hundreds of thousands of Kurds, who were displaced during Syria’s nearly 14-year civil war, will return to their homes. Thousands of Kurds living in Syria who have been deprived of nationality for decades under Assad will be given the right of citizenship, according to the agreement.
Kurds made up 10 percent of the country’s prewar population of 23 million. Kurdish leaders say they don’t want full autonomy with their own government and parliament. They want decentralization and room to run their day-to day-affairs.
