Saddened by US Airstrikes, Iraqi Protestors Storm US Embassy

On Tuesday, after the deadly airstrikes carried out by the US that killed 25 fighters from an Iran supported militia in Iraq, hundreds of mourners and protestors storm the US embassy in Baghdad. The crowd tried to enter the embassy cried “Down, Down USA! Death to America! and Death to Israel! Water bottles were tossed and security CCTV cameras outside were destroyed by the protestors.

The US military carried out the airstrikes this Sunday against the Iranian supported militia named Kataeb Hezbollah claiming it to be a retaliation for the killing of an American contractor last week in a rocket attack on an Iraqi military base which was blamed on the group.

This US airstrike was the largest attack that targeted an Iraqi state-sanctioned militia in recent years and this call for retaliation represents another escalation in the US recent proxy-war against Iran in the Middle East.

The attempted storming on the US embassy took place after several mourners left the funerals held for the militia fighters killed in the Baghdad area. They marched straight through the heavily fortified Green Zone and kept marching till the US Embassy there.

In words of US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo the airstrike send a message to Iran that the US will not tolerate actions caused by Iran that jeopardize American lives. On the other hand, the Iran-backed Iraqi militia has vowed revenge on Monday to retaliate for the US airstrikes that killed 25 and wounded several of their own people.

Other than the militia even the Iraqi government is outraged by the US attacks and says it will reconsider its relationship with the US-led coalition. The attack was called a “flagrant violation of its sovereignty” by the Iraqi government. It was the first time they said so after signing the agreement to a certain amount of US troops in the country.

According to Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi statement in a partly televised meeting, he has told the cabinet members that he did try to stop the US attack operation but there seems to be insistence from American officials.

The US military said that the strikes were precise and were conducted in five sites that are said to have Kataeb Hezbollah or the Hezbollah Brigades in Iraq and Syria. This group is separate from the Lebanese militancy group with the name Hezbollah and it operates under the Popular Mobilization Forces which is an umbrella of the state-sanctioned militia of which many are supported by Iran.