Ten people were killed in Baghdad on Monday after a decision by Iraq’s powerful Shiite Muslim cleric Moqtada Al-Sadr to quit politics over a political deadlock prompted clashes between his supporters and backers of Iran-backed rivals.
Young men loyal to Sadr who took to the streets in protest at the cleric’s move skirmished with supporters of Tehran-backed groups. They hurled rocks at each other outside Baghdad’s Green Zone, which is home to ministries and embassies.
Gunfire echoed across central Baghdad, reporters said. At least some of the shots appeared to come from guns being fired into the air, although the source of all the gunfire was not immediately clear in a nation awash with arms.Eight killed at one site and
In addition to two people killed, 19 people were injured, police and medical workers said.
The clashes took place hours after Sadr announced he was withdrawing from politics, which prompted his supporters, who had been staging a weeks-long sit-in at parliament in the Green Zone, to demonstrate and storm the main cabinet headquarters.
Iraq’s army declared a curfew from 3:30 p.m. (1230 GMT) and urged the protesters to leave the Green Zone.
During the stalemate over forming a new government, Sadr has galvanized his legions of backers, throwing into disarray Iraq’s effort to recover from decades of conflict and sanctions and its bid to tackle sectarian strife and rampant corruption.
Sadr, who has drawn broad support by opposing both US and Iranian influence on Iraqi politics, was the biggest winner from an October election but withdrew all his lawmakers from parliament in June after he failed to form a government that excluded his rivals, mostly Tehran-backed Shiite parties.
Sadr has insisted on early elections and the dissolution of parliament. He says no politician who has been in power since the US invasion in 2003 can hold office.
Iraq’s powerful Shia leader Muqtada al-Sadr announced he is quitting political life for good and closing his political offices in a move that could further inflame tensions in the country.
Gunfire rang out in the Green Zone and security forces launched tear gas cannisters on Monday to disperse al-Sadr supporters converging on the area. At least two people were killed and 19 wounded, police and medical workers said.Al-Sadr’s statement, published on Twitter, came after months of protests by supporters backing his call for the dissolution of the Iraqi parliament, which has seen 10 months of deadlock – representing the longest Iraq has gone without a government – and for new elections to be held.
“I hereby announce my final withdrawal,” al-Sadr said.
He added “all the institutions” linked to his Sadrist movement will be closed, except the mausoleum of his father, assassinated in 1999, and other heritage facilities.
The announcement was quickly met with escalation from al-Sadr’s supporters, who stormed the presidential palace, a ceremonial building inside Baghdad’s fortified Green Zone of government buildings.
Hundreds pulled down the cement barriers outside the palace with ropes and breached its gates. Many rushed into its lavish salons and marbled halls of the building, a key meeting place for Iraqi heads of state and foreign dignitaries.
Supporters, who have gathered at a sit-in since the end of July near the Iraqi parliament, also approached a counter-protest held by al-Sadr’s Shia rivals. The two sides hurled rocks at each other. Iraq’s army declared a nationwide, indefinite curfew from 7pm (16:00 GMT) on Monday.
“The security forces affirm their responsibility to protect government institutions, international missions, public and private properties,” a military statement said.
In his statement, al-Sadr attacked his political opponents and said they had not listened to his calls for reform.
Al-Sadr has withdrawn from politics or government in the past and also disbanded militias loyal to him. But he retains widespread influence over state institutions and controls a paramilitary group with thousands of members.
He has often returned to political activity after similar announcements, although the current political deadlock in Iraq appears harder to resolve than previous periods of dysfunction.
Hamzeh Hadad from the European Council on Foreign Relations questioned the motivation behind al-Sadr’s move.
“It’s not quite clear what is he resigning from. Is he asking the other members of his party that hold bureaucratic positions in the state to resign? That’s to be seen. He has done this many times and usually when he does claim to be withdrawing or resigning from the political system, it’s usually before elections and he always ends up backtracking. So, the question again here is will he backtrack as well?” Hadad told Al Jazeera.
Monday’s announcement came two days after al-Sadr said “all parties”, including his own should, give up government positions in order to help resolve the months-long political crisis, while calling on those who “have been part of the political process” since the United States-led invasion of the country in 2003 to “no longer participate”.
Al-Sadr’s party, the Sadrist Bloc, won the most seats in an October 2021 election, but he ordered his legislators to resign en masse in June after he failed to form a government of his choosing, which would have excluded powerful Shia rivals close to Iran.
The move, however, handed the initiative in parliament to his Iran-backed Shia opponents, the Coordination Framework Alliance
Al-Sadr’s supporters stormed the parliament building in late July and stopped his rivals from appointing a new president and prime minister.
Mustafa al-Kadhimi, al-Sadr’s ally, said he suspended cabinet meetings until further notice after Sadrist protesters stormed the government headquarters on Monday. Al-Kadhimi remains Iraq’s caretaker prime minister.
Reporting from Baghdad, Al Jazeera’s Mahmoud Abdelwahed said more al-Sadr supporters joined those staging the sit-in at parliament, adding al-Sadr’s statements appeared to seek to distance himself from any potential unrest.
“This resignation comes at a time that the political crisis in Iraq has reached an elevated stage,” said Abdelwahed. “It can be read in terms of disappointment, frustration by the Sadrist movements. But on the other hand it could be also read as an attempt to try to put more pressure on his rivals”
He added the political deadlock has halted services that are “impacting the regular citizens”.
Protests last week spread to the country’s Supreme Judicial Council, the country’s top administrative judicial authority, as al-Sadr called on the judiciary to dissolve parliament. The council said at the time it did not have the authority to dissolve parliament.
Iraq’s Supreme Federal Court is meeting on Tuesday to decide on whether parliament will be dissolved, although Farhad Alaaldin, the chairman of the Iraq Advisory Council, told Al Jazeera the Iraqi constitution says it is “up to the parliament to dissolve itself”.
He said the court proceedings would likely be postponed if protests escalated.
Alaaldin said it was unlikely al-Sadr would be stepping away from Iraqi politics for good. He has announced his withdrawal from political life before, only to walk his decision back.
“He wants to see Iraq in a way that he’s seeing it and he’s been working systematically since 2010, or you can say 2006, onward,” he said. “I don’t believe that he’s going to throw away everything that you’ve worked for for the past 18 years just on a tweet.
“He has a mission and he has a plan, and he thinks he has the way to make it into a different regime where he would be the dominant force.”
Iraq has struggled to recover since the defeat of the armed group ISIL in 2017 because political parties have squabbled over power and the vast oil wealth possessed by Iraq, OPEC’s second-largest producer.
