KDF headquarters burnt in Baghdad by protestors

Baghdad: Protestors vandalized the KDP (Kurdistan Democratic Party) headquarters at Bagdad after a KDP senior member criticised Hashd Al Shaabi, an Iraqi sponsored military group also known as PMF (Popular Mobilization Forces), on Saturday. Sources say that despite the presence of security forces, the crowds linked to armed Popular Mobilization factions stormed the KDP headquarters, burning and vandalizing it.

Video footage showed these groups breaking into the Headquarters of the Kurdish Party, destroying its property and gaining devices and documents inside it, and setting it on fire. The protesters carried "popular mobilization" flags and pictures of Iranian Quds Force commander Qasem Soleimani and former deputy commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, who were killed in a U.S. raid in January.

The attack was due to incitement regarding former Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari's comment that the Iraqi government faces a major and necessary challenge to "clean up the green zone from the militias of the crowd". The protestors assumed to be followers of PMF, also burned the Kurdistan Region flag and pictures of Kurdish leaders, according to the footages. Some component militias of Hashd Al Shaabi are considered terrorist groups by some states, while others have been accused of sectarian violence.

"The National Security Council discussed the attack on the KDP headquarters in Baghdad by a group of demonstrators, who broke the peaceful protests and resorted to violence by setting fire to the building," said a statement from Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi's press office after the strong condemnation of the lack of interference by Iraqi security forces in protecting the headquarters.

This incident is similar of series of incidents that were associated with the storming and burning of the Tigris satellite channel on August 31, as well as the break-in and sabotage of the MBC Iraq channel on May 18.