Demonstrators in Iraq will escalate their protest movement against the ruling class this week, accusing political powers of stalling in meeting their demands after three months of relentless rallies.
Tensions have reached a boiling point, with protests erupting in Baghdad and southern regions on Sunday.
In the capital, demonstrators burned large posters of Iran’s Quds Force commander, Qassem Soleimani, who was killed in a US air strike in Baghdad on January 3. They also burned posters of deputy chief of the Popular Mobilization Forces, Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, who was killed in the same raid.
In the city of Najaf, protesters set fire to a Kataib Hezbollah militia headquarters and to large mural of Soleimani and al-Muhandis.
Despite the arson, religious authority Ali al-Sistani, who is based in Najaf, threw his support behind the protesters.
A religious authority in Karbala, released a past message by Sistani in which he voiced his backing to the rallies, saying: “The protesters have found no other way than this to get rid of corruption.”
Protesters vowed to escalate their rallies this week by blocking major roads in Baghdad and throughout the country.
Mass protests have gripped Iraq since Oct. 1 and protesters, most of them young, are demanding an overhaul of a political system they see as profoundly corrupt and keeping most Iraqis in poverty. More than 450 people have been killed.
Sistani, Iraq’s most senior Shiite cleric, has repeatedly condemned the killing of unarmed protesters and has also urged demonstrators to remain peaceful and stop saboteurs turning their opposition violent.
Sistani has long opposed any foreign interference as well as the Iranian model of senior clergy being closely involved in running state institutions.
