BAGHDAD: Iraq deployed counter-terrorism troops in the southern city of Nassiriya yesterday after police “lost control” when gunfights broke out between protesters and security forces, police sources said.
Curfews were later imposed in Nassiriya and two other southern cities, Amara and Hilla, the police sources told Reuters, as protests that began on Tuesday over unemployment, corruption and poor public services increased.
The elite counter-terrorism service was also deployed to Baghdad airport where its men fired live ammunition and tear gas at protesters, preventing them from storming Baghdad airport.
Demands yesterday included the “fall of the regime” and government and political party buildings were set ablaze in two other southern provinces.
Seven people were killed yesterday and more than 200 were wounded in renewed clashes nationwide, the largest display of public anger against Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi’s year-old government. Two were killed on Tuesday.
Domestic instability coupled with regional tensions could prove to be the final nail in the coffin of Abdul Mahdi’s fragile coalition government, sworn in last year as a compromise between rival factions after an inconclusive election.
The slogan “fall of the regime” was popularised during the 2011 Arab Spring uprisings.
“We are demanding a change, we want the downfall of the whole government,” said one protester in Baghdad who declined to identify himself for fear of reprisal.
Any power vacuum in Iraq, should the government be toppled, could prove challenging for the region, given Baghdad’s status as an ally of both the United States and Iran, who are locked in a political standoff.