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US troops fire teargas to disperse protesters at Baghdad embassy Pro-Iran militants withdraw from US embassy in Baghdad
(about 5 hours later)
Dozens of pro-Iran militiamen and supporters camped out at gates of embassy overnight Militia group orders pullout after breach that has badly damaged US-Iraq relations
US troops have fired teargas to disperse pro-Iran protesters gathered outside the US embassy compound in Baghdad for a second day. Iranian-backed militants have withdrawn from the US embassy in Baghdad following an order from their militia organisation, ending a day-long siege that badly damaged US-Iraqi relations and demonstrated the strength of Iranian influence in the Iraqi capital.
Dozens of militiamen and their supporters camped out at the gates of the embassy overnight. On Tuesday, dozens of protesters had broken into the compound, damaging a reception area and smashing windows in one of the worst attacks on the embassy in recent memory. The US defence secretary, Mark Esper, announced that 750 airborne troops would be deployed to the region immediately, with more to follow in the next few days.
US Marines guarding the embassy fired teargas as more people arrived and after the protesters lit a fire on the roof of the reception area. Smoke could be seen rising from the building. “This deployment is an appropriate and precautionary action taken in response to increased threat levels against US personnel and facilities, such as we witnessed in Baghdad today,” Esper said in a written statement. “The United States will protect our people and interests anywhere they are found around the world.”
Demonstrators firebombed a gate, starting another fire and US soldiers were seen on the roof of the main embassy building. The troops being deployed are drawn from a rapid reaction unit in the army’s 82nd Airborne Division based at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. Esper was vague on where they would be going, but a US official familiar with the decision said their initial destination was Kuwait.
The breach at the embassy followed US airstrikes on Sunday that killed 25 fighters of the Iran-backed militia in Iraq, the Kata’ib Hezbollah. The Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF), an umbrella group for disparate Shia militias operating in Iraq, issued a statement on Wednesday calling for the withdrawal of the several hundred militiamen and supporters who had mobbed the embassy on Tuesday. Many of them camped around the heavily fortified building overnight.
The US military said the strikes were in retaliation for last week’s killing of an American contractor in a rocket attack on an Iraqi military base, which the US blamed on the militia. They took over a reception area of the embassy compound, smashed windows, lit fires on the roof and raised militia flags. They firebombed a second gate to the compound but did not breach the main building. US marine guards took up positions on the embassy roof and from there fired teargas rounds into the crowd on Wednesday.
No US casualties or evacuations were reported after Tuesday’s embassy attack. After the PMF statement, the crowds began to disperse, though members of Kata’ib Hezbollah, a Shia militia considered the most closely tied to Tehran, initially refused to obey the order, according to Agence France-Presse.
Iraqi security forces made no effort to stop the protesters on Tuesday as they marched to the heavily fortified Green Zone after a funeral for those killed in the US airstrikes, and nor did they intervene on Wednesday as the protests and fire-bombing resumed. “We burned them,” the militants shouted as they streamed out of the high-security Green Zone.
Donald Trump blamed Iran for the attack. His defence secretary, Mark Esper, later announced the immediate deployment of an infantry battalion of about 750 soldiers from the army’s 82nd Airborne Division at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, to the Middle East. He did not specify their destination, but a US official familiar with the decision said they would go to Kuwait. The breach at the embassy followed US airstrikes on Sunday that killed 25 Kata’ib Hezbollah fighters. The US military said the strikes were in retaliation for last week’s killing of an American contractor in a rocket attack on an Iraqi military base, which the US blamed on the militia.
The developments represent a downturn in Iraq-US relations that could further undermine US influence in the region and weaken Washington’s hand in its pressure campaign against Iran. Iraq has long struggled to balance its ties with the US and Iran. No US casualties or evacuations were reported after Tuesday’s embassy attack. Iraqi security forces made no effort to stop the protesters as they marched to the Green Zone after a funeral for those killed in the US airstrikes, nor did they intervene on Wednesday as the protests and fire-bombing resumed.
Donald Trump blamed Iran for the attack and said Tehran would “pay a big price for any US lives lost or damage to US property”. US officials expressed anger at the Iraqi government for allowing the militia forces to pass through checkpoints into the Green Zone and approach the embassy. The incident marked a low point in relations between Iraq and the US and a show of strength by Iranian-controlled forces.
Ranj Alaaldin, the director of the proxy wars initiative at the Brookings Institution in Doha and author of a forthcoming book on Shia militias, said: “Iran knows what it wants in Iraq and how to get it. It has a strategic and long-term and consistent policy in Iraq that is underpinned by a complex web of formidable interpersonal and inter-organisational links that permeate multiple sectors and theatres – the armed forces, ministries, religious networks and the economy.
“The US has the military superiority but hasn’t leveraged this with a political strategy ever since Obama withdrew US forces in 2011 and has alienated its allies in recent years. The US was never in a position to shape the politics in the aftermath of its strike and it probably never wanted to anyway given its limitations. The Iranians and their proxies will milk this as much as they can.”