US Ambassador, Staff in Baghdad Evacuated as Angry Iraqis Try to Break Into Embassy After Airstrikes

Baghdad: Hundreds of angry supporters of an Iraqi Shiite militia smashed security cameras on the wall around the US Embassy in Baghdad, hurled stones and set up protest tents there on Tuesday, prompting tear gas and gunfire. This comes after US airstrikes this week that killed 25 fighters of the Iran-backed militia in Iraq.

Shouting “Down, Down USA!” the crowd tried to push inside the embassy grounds, hurling water bottles and smashing security cameras outside. They raised militia flags and taunted the embassy's security staff who remained behind the glass windows in the gates' reception area.

They sprayed graffiti on the wall and windows in red in support of the Kataeb Hezbollah militia: “Closed in the name of the resistance.”

The US military carried out the strikes on Sunday against the Kataeb Hezbollah militia, calling it retaliation for last week's killing of an American contractor in a rocket attack on an Iraqi military base that it 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 U.S. and Iran playing out in the Middle East.

Tuesday's attempted embassy storming took place after mourners and supporters held funerals for the militia fighters killed in a Baghdad neighbourhood, after which they marched on to the heavily fortified Green Zone and kept walking till they reached the sprawling US Embassy there.

AP journalists then saw the crowd as they tried to scale the walls of the embassy, in what appeared to be an attempt to storm it, shouting “Down, down USA!” and “Death to America” and “Death to Israel.” Security guards were seen retreating to the inside of the embassy.

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

The Iranian-backed Iraqi militia had vowed Monday to retaliate for the US military strikes. The attack and vows for revenge raised concerns of new attacks that could threaten American interests in the region.

The US attack also 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. It called the attack a “flagrant violation" of its sovereignty.

In a partly televised meeting 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 Mobilization Forces. Many of them are supported by Iran.