Iraqi mourners try to storm US embassy after deadly air strikes

Hundreds of Iraqi mourners are trying to storm the US embassy in Baghdad following American air strikes which killed 25 fighters from an Iranian-backed Shia militia.

The mourners held funerals for those killed in an area of the Iraqi capital, after which they marched on to the heavily fortified Green Zone until they reached the sprawling US embassy there.

Journalists on the scene saw the chanting crowd try to storm the embassy.
The crowd tried to push inside the embassy grounds, hurling water bottles and smashing security cameras outside.

The US military carried out the strikes on Sunday against the Iranian-backed Kataeb Hezbollah militia, an act of retaliation over last week’s killing of an American contractor in a rocket attack on an Iraqi military base which was blamed on the group.

The US attack – the largest targeting an Iraqi state-sanctioned militia in recent years – and the calls for retaliation represent a new escalation in the proxy war between the US and Iran playing out in the Middle East.
Security guards were seen retreating to the inside of the embassy as marchers approached.

Protesters also were seen hanging yellow flags belonging to the Kataeb Hezbollah militia backed by Iran on the walls of the embassy.

US secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the strikes send the message that the US will not tolerate actions by Iran that jeopardise American lives.

The Iranian-backed Iraqi militia had vowed to retaliate for the US strikes in Iraq and Syria which also left dozens of others wounded.

The attack and vows of revenge raised concerns over new attacks that could threaten American interests in the region.
The US attack outraged both the militias and the Iraqi government which said it will reconsider its relationship with the US-led coalition – the first time it has said it will do so since an agreement was struck to keep some US troops in the country.

The Iraqi government called the attack a “flagrant violation” of its sovereignty.

In a partly televised meeting on Monday, Iraqi prime minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi told cabinet members that he had tried to stop the US operation, “but there was insistence” from American officials.

The US military said “precision defensive strikes” were conducted against five sites of Kataeb Hezbollah, or Hezbollah Brigades in Iraq and Syria.

The group, which is a separate force from the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, operates under the umbrella of the state-sanctioned militias known collectively as the Popular Mobilisation Forces..