Enraged Iraqi protesters have stormed the US embassy in Baghdad's Green Zone following a deadly US strike that killed 25 fighters from the Hezbollah Brigades militia.
BREAKING - Hundreds of Kataib Hezbollah supporters are swarming the US embassy in Baghdad. No attempt to stop them by Iraqi forced guarding the Green Zone. No way out for diplomats. V. dangerous situation pic.twitter.com/sUgTI8iXHb
— Liz Sly (@LizSly) December 31, 2019
The protest took place after mourners held funerals for the militia fighters in a Baghdad neighborhood, after which they marched on to the heavily fortified Green Zone. Crowds then kept walking until they reached the sprawling US embassy in Baghdad.
"No to America, No to Saudis" A group of protesters mainly Hashd AlShaabi (#PMF) members carrying Kataeb Hezbollah's & ?? flags have managed (or were allowed in) to pass the checkpoints and reach the #US embassy in Green zone #Baghdad pic.twitter.com/0ddmQuOyge
— Nafiseh Kohnavard (@nafisehkBBC) December 31, 2019
Shouting "Down, Down USA!" the crowd tried to push inside the embassy grounds, hurling water bottles and smashing security cameras outside.
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 Mobilisation Forces.
Pro-#Iran Militia Kataib Hezbollah are now inside US Embassy in Baghdad #Iraq. Iraqi security and fortifications failed to stop them.
— Joyce Karam (@Joyce_Karam) December 31, 2019
They’re in reception area. Smoke seen in other videos. Hezbollah refusing calls to leave vicinity: pic.twitter.com/Kz1rMuxxcy
The US military carried out the deadly strikes against the Hezbollah Brigades militia this weekend, claiming that it was retaliation for last week's killing of an American contractor in a rocket attack on an Iraqi military base that it blamed on the group.
Kataib Hezbollah protesters breaching the gates of the US embassy in Baghdad. They say they will stay till US troops leave. It’s the biggest US embassy in the world & supposedly secure but hard to see how diplomats can remain now pic.twitter.com/17VkjQA71W
— Liz Sly (@LizSly) December 31, 2019
The US military said "precision defensive strikes" were conducted against five sites of Hezbollah Brigades in Iraq and Syria.
The US attack, the largest targeting an Iraqi state-sanctioned militia in recent years, and the calls for retaliation, represent a new escalation in the deeply rooted conflict between the US and Iran playing out in the Middle East.
