Shiite forces and popular movement protesters in Iraq have exchanged accusations against the backdrop of violence witnessed during the Shiite Arbaeen pilgrimage season in the city of Karbala.
Video footage shot in Karbala showed security servicemen using force to disband a group of Iraqi youth who were raising banners with pictures of protesters killed in mass demonstrations last year and chanting slogans against corruption, the government, the ruling political class, the US and Iran.
Cleric Moqtada Al Sadr, head of the Islamic Dawa Party Nouri al-Maliki, Asa'ib Ahl al-Haq founder Qais Khazali and other leaders from the Shiite political class denounced the protesters.
The popular movement staging the anti-government protests in Iraq, in a statement, accused the country’s political class of standing behind bloodshed and social strife.
Peaceful protesters were forced to engage in violence after they were barred from entering the shrines in Karbala to perform pilgrimage rituals, despite having previously been granted approval from concerned religious authorities, the statement said.
Sadr warned on Wednesday he would send his supporters to crack down on protests after the clashes with security forces in Karbala.
The cleric blasted the protesters as sympathizers with ISIS and Baathist ideology and opportunists seeking to exploit the Arbaeen to make a statement.
“Those [who protested] clearly sympathize with ISIS and the Baath regime and are against religion,” Sadr, who was previously a supporter of the demonstrations, tweeted.
Commenting on the possibility of a security fallout from the clashes, Sadr said that he might need to “interfere in his own private and public way.”
He called on his supporters to remain alert and prepared to receive his orders.
Security forces said infiltrators were responsible for the attacks.
“During the pilgrimage in Karbala, a number of demonstrators from different governorates gathered yesterday afternoon in Karbala and headed towards the Qibla Gate and tried to enter through a closed road,” security forces said Wednesday.
The protesters “attacked security forces with stones” and that led to clashes, the forces said.
