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Iraq
Iraqi protesters push a freezer with writing reading "No No America" amid clashes with riot police in Baghdad on January 20, 2020. Photo: Ahmad al-Rubaye/AFP
ERBIL, Kurdistan Region- Anti-US demonstrations have begun in Baghdad today alongside the daily reform protests that have rocked Iraq for almost five months.
The protests, termed the "Friday of Independence", have already started around the Kahramana area, 5.5 kilometers from the Baghdad University Intersection.
Influential Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr has been calling for marches denouncing the presence of US forces in Iraq for several weeks.
Sadr’s latest call for mobilization came on Thursday, calling on all Iraqis to join the protest that will also be joined by Iran-backed militia groups, including Kataib Hezbollah, a group at the center of recent US-Iran tensions.
Sadr's supporters have reportedly been mobilizing since 5:00 AM.
Rudaw's reporter reported that the US Embassy in Baghdad has posted a flyer on its doors to warn against transgression against the embassy, which was stormed by Iran-backed militia supporters last month.
The protests come at the same time as the long-established popular protests by Iraqis, mostly youth, to demand an overhaul of the political system, early elections, and the end of the post-2003 ruling class.
Mohammed Salih al-Iraqi, a Twitter persona close to Sadr and suspected by some to be Sadr himself, tweeted a a photo on Thursday depicting US troops carrying a coffin draped with the American flag.
“The American people should say: stop it,” read the tweet.
Sadr fought against US forces in Iraq from 2003 after founding the ‘Mahdi Army’, a militia which killed and injured scores of US servicemen. In 2008, he disbanded the Mahdi Army, retreating into Iran reportedly for religious studies.
He later returned to Iraq years later, and he rebranded the Mahdi Army in 2014 as the “Peace Brigades”, to fight against the Islamic State (ISIS).
Since then, he has presented himself a figure transcendental to sectarianism, shunning foreign influence in Iraqi affairs.
However, with close ties to Iran, the cleric has taken an even stronger stance following skyrocketing US-Iran tensions playing out in Iraq since December 27, reactivating the Mahdi Army and describing himself as the head of “Iraqi National Resistance.”
Sadr, nevertheless, has stood by popular protests, participants of whom have rejected the cleric’s call to rally, fearing attention could be diverted from reforms under the cover of anti-US sentiments.
Figures from Sadr’s camp have insisted that the Friday anti-US protests do not target the popular protests.
Sadr’s spokeperson Sheikh Salah al-Obeidi told Iraqi state media on Wednesday that anti-US demonstrations would not take place in Tahrir Square, the heartland of pro-reform demonstrations, but instead at the Baghdad University intersection at Jaddiryah.
“We are not against the October protests,” he added.
Iraqi protesters in Tahrir, whose demands are being sluggishly dealt with by Iraqi authorities, have not shown a positive stance towards the anti-US protests.
“We are out for a cause. We don’t want Muqtada al-Sadr or any other person, and if they have a cause, they should go to another square, We here want a homeland, and if they want to expel foreign troops, let them protest far away from us,” Mohammed Mousa, who has been protesting for 109 days in Tahrir, told Rudaw on Thursday.
“Tahrir Square represents the people of Iraq, and we welcome anyone who supports our principles and our demands. However, if they want to achieve political goals, then we hope for them to go out somewhere else far from Tahrir Square,” Jawad Kadhim, another protesters, told Rudaw.
Corrected at 1.12pm: Anti-US rallies were not postponed from January 17
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