BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraqi security forces killed at least five people on Saturday as they pushed protesters back toward their main camp in central Baghdad using live ammunition, tear gas and sound bombs, police and medics said.
Demonstrators take part during the ongoing anti-government protests in Baghdad, Iraq November 9, 2019. REUTERS/Alaa al-Marjani
The clashes wounded scores more people and put security forces back in control of all except one major bridge linking the Iraqi capital’s eastern residential and business districts to government headquarters across the Tigris river.
The government promised reforms aimed at ending the crisis. Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi said on Saturday that political parties had “made mistakes” in their running of the country, recognized the legitimacy of protest to bring about political change and pledged electoral reform.
Mass protests began at Tahrir Square in Baghdad on Oct. 1 as demonstrators demanded jobs and services, and have swelled in the capital and southern cities with calls for an overhaul of the sectarian political system.
It is the biggest and most complex challenge in years to the political order set up after a U.S.-led invasion that toppled dictator Saddam Hussein in 2003.
Iraq, exhausted by decades of conflict and sanctions, had enjoyed relative calm after Islamic State was defeated in 2017.
But the government has been unable to find an answer to the current round of unrest which pits the entire political class against mostly unemployed youth who have seen no improvement in their lives even in peacetime.
Despite government pledges of reform, security forces have used lethal force since the start and killed more than 280 people across the country.
On Saturday, forces drove protesters back from some of the bridges they had tried to occupy during the week and toward Tahrir Square, the main gathering point for demonstrators.
The protesters still hold a portion of the adjacent Jumhuriya Bridge where they have erected barricades in a stand-off with police.
But demonstrators fear the next target will be Tahrir Square and Jumhuriya Bridge. Fresh clashes erupted after night fall near Tahrir Square, with the sound of tear gas and stun grenades being fired echoing around central Baghdad, as it had nightly for the past week two weeks.
“Police have re-taken almost the entire area up ahead of us. They’re advancing and my guess is tonight they’ll try to take Tahrir,” said one protester, who gave his name only as Abdullah.
