(Washington Post) Louisa Loveluck and Mustafa Salim - As the latest round of protests in Iraq enters a second week, at least 264 have been killed and more than 12,000 wounded. On Wednesday, the biggest wave of anti-government demonstrations in decades spread across central Baghdad. Two government officials said that Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi had planned to resign, but was pressured not to do so by advisers and officials linked to Iran. "He wanted to resign, but after a long meeting, they convinced him not to," said one official. "The Iranian side considers this as their government, and for the first time they have control of the decision-making. They don't want to lose that easily." "This is the largest grass-roots movement in Iraq's modern history," said Harith Hasan of the Carnegie Middle East Center. "The government lost the narrative in the face of a very vibrant movement."
2019-11-08 00:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive