The Basra airport, targeted by rocket fire, as violent protests break out in Iraq

BASRA / ERBIL, Iraq (Reuters) – Basra airport was targeted on Saturday by rocket fire after a night of protest against the Iraqi political elite.

Iraqi security sources said three Katyusha rockets fired by unknown assailants had reached the perimeter of the airport, although no injuries or injuries were reported. The US Consulate is adjacent to Basra Airport.

An Iraqi airport official said there was no disruption of operations and that flights were taking off and landing normally.

The attack took place shortly after the curfew was lifted throughout the city and hours after the reopening of the main seaport of Umm Qasr, Iraq, where protesters blocked the entrance to the port, forcing them to stop all operations.

Basra, Iraq's second-largest city in the country's Shia center, has seen five days of deadly demonstrations in which government buildings have been ransacked and burned by protesters angry at political corruption. Protests erupted in July against poor government services, but intensified this week.

On Friday, protesters broke into the offices of the Iranian consulate, shouting condemnation of what many perceive as Iran's grip on Iraq's political affairs, and setting it on fire. Both Iran and Iraq have strongly condemned this measure, raising fears of possible punishment.

Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, who held an emergency meeting Saturday morning before Parliament convened an emergency session to discuss the crisis, said in a statement that he had ordered an investigation into the security forces' obligations in the protection of government buildings and the Iranian consulate.

PROTEST OF WATER

The unrest has plunged Iraq into a major crisis at a time when politicians still have not managed to agree on a new government after an inconclusive election in May. The new parliament finally met for the first time on Monday, but separated after a day after failing to elect a speaker, let alone appoint a new prime minister.

Event organizers said they would take a break on Saturday after the evening's escalation, while additional security forces were deployed as reinforcements.

Residents of Basra, a city of more than 2 million people, say they have been driven into the streets by corruption and irregularity, which has allowed infrastructure to collapse, leaving neither electricity nor drinking water. full summer.

They say that the water supply has been contaminated with salt, which makes them vulnerable and desperate during the hot summer months and thousands of people have been hospitalized for having consumed it.

Three demonstrators died on Friday and another 48 were wounded, 26 of whom were shot dead, according to sources, while two members of the security forces were wounded.

At least 13 protesters have died, including some in clashes with security forces since Monday, and dozens more have been injured, according to the Basrah health directorate and local health sources.