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U.S. Troops Fire Tear Gas at Protesters Outside Embassy in Iraq U.S. Troops Fire Tear Gas as Protesters Swarm Embassy in Iraq Again
(about 1 hour later)
BAGHDAD — American troops fired tear gas on Wednesday to disperse pro-Iran protesters who were gathered outside the United States Embassy compound in Baghdad for a second day. BAGHDAD — For a second day, demonstrators swarmed the United States Embassy in Iraq on Wednesday and troops fired tear gas in an attempt to disperse them, but after a few hours the militia leaders who had organized the demonstration called on the crowd to leave.
Dozens of members of an Iran-backed militia and their supporters had camped out at the gates of the embassy overnight after breaking into the compound, trashing a reception area and smashing windows in one of the worst attacks on the embassy in recent memory. President Trump said on Tuesday that Iran was responsible for events at the embassy compound in Baghdad, and tweeted, “They will pay a very BIG PRICE! This is not a Warning, it is a Threat.”
The Marines guarding the embassy fired tear gas after the protesters lit a fire on the roof of the reception area. Smoke rose from the building. That drew a taunting response on Wednesday from Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader. “You can’t do anything,” he said in a speech in Tehran, according to his website, adding: “If the Islamic Republic decides to challenge and fight, it will do so unequivocally.”
The protesters are angered by the American airstrikes over the weekend that targeted an Iran-backed militia, killing 25 fighters. The situation in Iraq has became dramatically more tense in the last few days, raising concerns about a spark that could set off a wider regional clash. The growing confrontations between the United States and Iran, the main sponsors of the fragile Iraqi government and the primary foreign military powers there, adds a volatile element to the region.
President Trump blamed Iran for the attack and Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper later announced the immediate deployment of an infantry battalion of about 750 soldiers. He did not specify their destination, but an American official familiar with the decision said they would go to Kuwait. The United States blamed an Iranian-backed militia for a rocket attack on Friday on an Iraqi military base, which killed an American contractor and wounded several other people. American forces responded on Sunday with strikes on five sites controlled by the militia, in Syria and Iraq, that killed at least two dozen people and injured twice as many; Iran has put the death toll at 31.
No American casualties or evacuations were reported on Tuesday. Iraqi security forces made no effort to stop the protesters as they marched to the heavily fortified Green Zone after a funeral for those killed in the American airstrikes, nor did they intervene on Wednesday. On Tuesday, thousands of Iraqis, many of them militia fighters, marched on the United States embassy compound in Baghdad to protest the American strikes; some of them forced their way through the outer wall, set fires and threw rocks. They did not attempt to breach the embassy, itself, and there were no reports of serious injuries, but the clash evoked memories of the takeover of the American embassy in Tehran during the Iranian Revolution in 1979.
Iran has denied any involvement in the attack on the embassy. A Foreign Ministry spokesman there, Abbas Mousavi, was quoted by state media outlets on Tuesday as warning the United States against any “miscalculation” in the worsening standoff. In an ominous sign for the Americans’ ability to stay, the Iraqi authorities, who had prevented previous demonstrations from getting near the embassy compound, allowed the protesters on Tuesday to walk up to it unimpeded.
Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, criticized the American airstrikes and accused the United States of taking revenge on Iran for the defeat of the Islamic State group, which he said was an American creation. Militia leaders vowed that they would not go away, but would stage a sit-in just outside the compound until the United States withdrew from Iraq, which would strengthen Iran’s hand in a country where it already wields significant power.
He condemned American “wickedness,” according to the remarks carried by the semiofficial ISNA news agency. But on Wednesday afternoon, the umbrella group for the militias, the Popular Mobilization Forces, ordered everyone to leave the embassy area.
The United States and Iran have vied for influence over Iraq since the 2003 American-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein. Iran has close ties to Iraq’s Shiite majority and many of its major political factions, and its influence has steadily grown. The number of protesters on the street outside the compound on Wednesday was about 1,000, much smaller than it had been on Tuesday, but the situation remained combustible.
Iraqi special forces charged with protecting the embassy were relatively few in number, about 30 men. They were caught between the demonstrators and American troops, and exposed to the tear gas fired by United States forces at the protesters who attempted to climb onto the roof of the guard post — damaged by fire on Tuesday — and jump inside the compound.
At about midday, as more protesters clambered on to the roof, the Americans fired at least four volleys of tear gas, driving several hundred demonstrators back from the compound’s front gate, but a larger number remained.
A general with the Iraqi security forces, who asked not to be quoted by name, stood with his men next to the perimeter walls as protesters tried to scale them.
“This is not good — they have to stay away from the wall,” he said. The Americans, he added, “are right when they fire tear gas because otherwise the protesters will get inside the compound, but we are caught in between.”
“What can we do?” he asked.
In the past, it was Iraqi forces firing tear gas to dispel protests, including those staged by the militias. But this week, the Iraqi authorities have left that to the United States, rather than confronting their own people.
Mr. Khamenei, addressing Mr. Trump, said, “If you were logical — which you’re not — you would see that your crimes in Iraq, Afghanistan” and elsewhere “have made nations hate you,” the ayatollah’s website reported.
Iraqi militias — in theory under the umbrella of the national military, but often quite independent — played a major role in the fight against the Islamic State, or ISIS. While many of are Shiite Muslim groups backed by Iran, a Shiite theocracy at odds with the United States, they had goals in common until the Islamic State lost its territory.
Mr. Khamenei, said the United States was “taking revenge on the Popular Mobilization Forces for defeating ISIS,” a group that he claimed “the U.S. had created.”
In Baghdad, the militia that the United States struck on Sunday, Khataib Hezbollah, denied responsibility for the most confrontational demonstrators.
When asked why the protesters were climbing on the roof and setting fires anew, a spokesman for the group said: “We can’t control those people and I think you heard me say over the loudspeakers: ‘Don’t go deeply, don’t burn.’ Our message is to stay here and have a sit-in, but they didn’t listen to me, so what can I do?”
There are about 30 groups within the Popular Mobilization Forces, each answering to different leaders who do not always agree with each other. Neither the government nor any of the factions has the authority to corral all of them, making for a dangerous mix.
Falih Hassan reported from Baghdad, and Alissa Rubin from Paris.