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Moqtada al-Sadr supporters attempt Baghdad green zone break-in Moqtada al-Sadr supporters break into Baghdad green zone
(35 minutes later)
Thousands of supporters of the Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr have attempted to break into Baghdad’s fortified green zone again, three weeks after storming parliament. Thousands of protesters have entered Baghdad’s fortified green zone for the second time in three weeks, storming the parliament and briefly entering the prime minister’s office before being shot at by troops using live rounds and water cannons.
A huge deployment of security forces met the protesters with teargas, sound bombs and water cannon on Friday, according to an AFP reporter who saw several demonstrators with light injuries. The incursion by supporters of the Shia cleric Muqtadr al-Sadr is yet another challenge to the government, which has struggled to provide a response to numerous crises in Iraq, including stalled plans for action against widespread corruption, which are central to the protesters demands.
The protesters gathered on Tahrir Square in central Baghdad, removed barbed wire on one of the main bridges over the Tigris and massed outside the green zone.
Related: M​​oqtada al-Sadr: who is the cleric directing Iraq's protests?Related: M​​oqtada al-Sadr: who is the cleric directing Iraq's protests?
The Sadr supporters, who have been protesting for months to demand reforms and an end to corruption, pushed past a gate of the green zone but were swiftly pinned back. Up to 50 people were reportedly wounded in clashes inside the zone and at nearby entrances. Demonstrators teemed across a bridge over the river Tigris towards a main gate where heavy gunfire was reported. There were unconfirmed reports that several people had been killed.
Sadr supporters had encountered relatively little resistance when they pulled down slabs of blast walls surrounding the zone last month and were able to enter the main parliament building. Unlike during a similar demonstration earlier this month, troops guarding the area refused to allow the demonstrators to enter. By nightfall, the protesters had mostly withdrawn from the zone and were being pushed back over the river.
The breach of the green zone – which is home to the prime minister’s office as well as the US embassy and several others – further deepened the country’s political crisis. The rallies were organised by the Sadrist Movement, which is loyal to al-Sadr, who has been increasingly strident in his criticism of stalled reforms. Other groups and unaligned residents of the city joined the fray.
Haider al-Abadi, the prime minister, has proposed reforms and wants to replace the current government of party-affiliated ministers with a cabinet of technocrats. There was no repeat of the scenes earlier this month when thousands of men walked past guards into once secure areas, but the defiance and numbers of the protesters poses a further threat to the authority of the prime minister, Haidar al-Abadi, who has staked his name, and the country’s future, on an ambitious raft of measures aimed at breaking the systemic hold that corruption has on Iraq’s economy.
Many parties however have resisted a move that would undermine the very patronage system that is the main source of their power. Abadi has twice attempted to replace his corrupt cabinet with technocrats who he believes would be free from the grip of politicians vested in maintaining the status quo to protect their interests. However, his attempts have so far been defeated on the floor of the parliament.
Sadr, a Najaf-based cleric who once fought the US occupation, has recently cast himself as a champion of the drive against corruption. Iraq’s economy, which is 97% dependent on oil revenues has been pummelled by a collapse in the price of oil per barrel in the past 12 months. Before then, high revenues had shielded endemic corruption, which has stripped tens of billions of dollars from public coffers in recent years.
His followers pulled out of the green zone a day after breaking in three weeks ago but warned they would return if parliament again failed to take swift action on reforms. A structural fall in the global oil price has exposed the country to a $17bn gap in this financial year alone, with grave fears that officials will not be able to pay a bloated public payroll or afford the costly fight against the Islamic State terror group.
However parliament has failed to even reconvene since the incident, infuriating the Sadrist movement. The International Monetary Fund this week agreed to loan Iraq $5.4bn, on the condition that it introduces urgent reforms, cuts its budget deficit and pays billions in arrears to oil companies and contractors. The IMF demanded more efficiencies in collecting bills and in supervising Iraq’s banking sector, where money laundering is rife.
Sadr supporters have blamed the government for a series of bomb attacks in Baghdad, including a particularly deadly one in their bastion of Sadr City, even though Isis claimed responsibility for them. The green zone had been off limits to most Iraqis since before the fall of Saddam Hussein and has long been seen as a symbol of the privilege and unaccountability of the country’s leaders.
The first incursion three weeks ago exposed the unwillingness of security forces to defy al-Sadr, whose powerful Mehdi Army was one of the main protagonists in the country’s civil war a decade ago. Since then, al-Sadr has maintained significant influence in large parts of Shia Iraq. He had earlier led protests himself, briefly entering the zone several days before his followers issued their first challenge.