Thirty people have been killed and over 700, including 110 security officers, injured in ongoing clashes between supporters of influential Iraqi Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr and the country's security forces in Baghdad, the Al Jazeera broadcaster reported on Tuesday, citing an Iraqi medical source.
Currently, violent clashes are ongoing in Baghdad and several other provinces of Iraq despite reports about government's attempt to negotiate with the opposition, the broadcaster reported. Al-Sadr's supporters continue to shell the high-security Green Zone in Baghdad, with sounds of explosions and gunfire heard in the area despite the curfew, according to the report.
Four missiles were fired at the Green Zone on Tuesday morning, damaging a residential complex, the Iraqi security service wrote on Twitter. Security forces said the missiles were launched from the localities of Al Habib and Al Baladiyat east of the capital.
On Monday, al-Sadr announced his retirement from politics and the closure of all offices of his party — the Sadrist Movement — amid threats of being physically eliminated. The move prompted violent clashes between al-Sadr's followers and Iraqi security forces, with demonstrators storming the Republican Palace in the government's Green Zone in Baghdad. On Monday, Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi imposed a nationwide curfew. The next day, he extended it, while also declaring Tuesday a day off in the country.
Iraq has been facing a political deadlock since the early parliamentary elections — the first since 2003 — in October 2021. Al-Sadr's political bloc won the elections but reverted to the opposition in May 2022 and stepped down in June after several unsuccessful attempts to form a government.
