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BAGHDAD – Followers of a prominent Shiite cleric stormed Iraq’s presidential palace on Monday, in an outburst of anger after the cleric vowed to leave politics that led to clashes with security forces and left at least 12 dead, health officials said.
By late evening, gunfire and explosions were rattling windows across the capital, while long-running political arguments gave way to the deployment of heavy weapons and mortar rounds.
The violence was the worst in a summer of unrest in Iraq, which has been without a government for the better part of a year and gripped by escalating feuds between political factions, including followers of the cleric, Moqtada al -Sadr, and the Shiite rival. groups that are supported by Iran.
Sadr’s supporters stormed the palace on Monday after he announced his “definitive” retirement from politics, a threat he has made before, for years in the public eye, but which could have more serious consequences for the political climate charged and with the country governed. for a provisional government.
“You are free from me,” Sadr told his supporters in a resignation message posted Monday afternoon on Twitter.
The fall was immediate. Sadr’s supporters, who had held a sit-in inside the Green Zone, home to government offices and diplomatic missions, scaled the palace gates and paraded through its ornate halls, in scenes shared on social media. Soon after, the sounds of live ammunition rang out in the capital, as security forces descended on the protesters.
Elsewhere in Iraq, Sadr’s supporters blocked roads and government buildings, including in Basra in the south. The UN mission in Iraq called the developments an “extremely dangerous escalation” and implored protesters to withdraw from the Green Zone.
“Iraqis cannot be held hostage by an unpredictable and unsustainable situation. The very survival of the State is at stake,” the mission said in a statement.
Iraq’s political dysfunction – a feature of civic life since the US invasion nearly two decades ago entrenched a sectarian and kleptocratic order – entered its final phase in October, when Sadr won the major number of seats in parliament but could not form a government. After months of political paralysis, Sadr removed his lawmakers from the legislature in June and sent his followers to occupy parliament.
A rival political bloc, made up of Iran-backed Shiite groups, has also held protests and sit-ins in the Green Zone, raising fears of a clash. Against the backdrop of internal political strife, Iraqis have suffered greatly as state institutions, from schools to hospitals, deteriorate without government support.
Sadr, a populist who has opposed U.S. and Iranian influence in Iraq, has called for early elections as well as a ban on political figures who served after the U.S. invasion from working in government
The reasons for his latest political tactic were unclear, but it came on the same day that an aging cleric who was considered a supporter of Sadr and his family announced his own retirement, in a statement containing several digs at Sadr.
The statement by Grand Ayatollah Kadhim Husayni al-Haeri, who lives in Iran, called on his followers to support Iran’s supreme leader — rather than Iraq-based Shiite clerics — and also he criticized Sadr, without naming him, and suggested he did not have the “requisite conditions”. ” for leadership.
The statement had a “big impact” on Sadr, who likely thought his Iran-backed Shiite rivals were behind the cleric’s withdrawal, said Ali Al-Mayali, an Iraqi political analyst. Those rivals, he said, had rejected Sadr’s attempts to form a government.
“The Sadrists from the beginning have hinted at civil disobedience as their last option. I think Sadr’s tweet … is the green light for civil disobedience as their last step” against their Shiite rivals, Mayali said. .
Overnight, there were unconfirmed reports of armed attacks on facilities used by Iran-backed Shiite militias across the country, including in Basra.
Health officials did not identify the victims of the violence in Baghdad on Monday, but said some had been shot in the chest or stomach. In a statement on Monday night, Iraq’s acting prime minister, Mustafa al-Kadhimi, said the use of live ammunition by security forces was “strictly prohibited” and called for the protection of protesters .
Fahim reported from Istanbul.