Widespread protests have gripped multiple Iraqi cities for a week in response to government corruption, rising unemployment, and an electricity shortage which has left residents suffocating in soaring summer temperatures.
What began as anger over a continued failing infrastructure, however, has increasingly turned into political protests and clashes with police after May 12th parliamentary elections tainted by broad allegations of fraud failed to produce a new government.
And now Iraq’s top Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, has weighed in publicly on the side of the protesters, stating they are facing an “extreme lack of public services”.
Sistani’s words were issued via live television broadcast during a significant escalation in the Shia hotbed of Najaf on Friday, where hundreds of protesters stormed the city’s international airport, bringing air traffic to a halt.
Video showed demonstrators rushing through security barriers while chanting demands, and multiple fires were lit just outside the terminal. Iraqi police appear to have held back, as the protesters numbers were significant — possibly into the thousands according to social media footage — and were able to block key access points to the airport. State TV reported that security was restored and operations resumed as normal by late Friday.
Though sporadic protests over the country’s failing electricity grid have been ongoing throughout the summer, last weekend witnessed the first significant clashes with security forces in the southern city of Basra, resulting in an least one death. And this weekend’s clashes appear to be escalating with at least two more deaths reported in Amara, the capital of the Maysan province on the border with Iran.
In response, Iraqi prime minister Haider al-Abadi reportedly held an emergency homeland security cabinet meeting Friday and personally went to the restive southern city of Basra to address and attempt to calm the current unrest.
Significantly, demonstrators have begun targeting oil companies located in the city, where according to Al-Monitor counter-terror units have deployed:
Dozens of demonstrators stormed the offices of South Oil Company in Basra on July 12 before security forces regained control of the site the same evening. Protesters have now blocked the routes to local oil refineries, setting up tents on the main streets near the oil fields.
On July 13, special forces from the counterterrorism unit arrived in Basra to protect the oil companies and oil fields in the province.
Foreign oil companies have further begun evacuations, according to the same report:
With protests continuing, foreign oil companies have begun operations to transfer their international employees from Basra province in efforts to avert any possible attacks on them. Local media reported July 12 that helicopters evacuated staff from the Lukoil headquarters in Qurna’s second oil field, as security forces stepped up their presence in the area after a checkpoint was burned by demonstrators. But the Ministry of Oil denied the news.
Other regional media reports indicate protesters have already attempted to storm oil facilities and offices, in some instances setting fire to external structures, while also blocking access to the nearby commodities port of Umm Qasr.
Protests also raged in the cities of Amara and Nasiriya reportedly over unemployment and delivery of basic services.
Unconfirmed reports that protestors set alight the homes of at least two politicians in #Iraq's Najaf. https://t.co/5lDfi7yZ9G
— H. Sumeri (@IraqiSecurity) July 13, 2018
Large-scale protests across multiple cities in southern #Iraq over lack of services, unemployment and electricity shortages.
Najaf airport has been stormed by protestors. Political party HQs in Maysan province set alight. Roads around Basra blocked. pic.twitter.com/xL5aKTX61K
— H. Sumeri (@IraqiSecurity) July 13, 2018
Last week, Basra provincial council member Zahra Hamza told local media that, “Basra is facing a real electricity crisis which has compelled its citizens to go out and protest against constant electricity outages.”
Likely fueling widespread anger that erupted in the streets this week, the Ministry of Oil for Iraq said a week ago that it’s been doling out oil and fuel only on an essential basis to select government and civil institutions which depend on it to function. The Iraqi Ministry of Oil issued the following statement while separately placing the blame on “wasteful” consumers: “The company distributes petroleum products to provide fuel in all types of oil derivatives to citizens in the provinces and families, IDPs in areas liberated from terrorism, the Ministry of Electricity and private generators.”
While PM Abadi has vowed to rebuild the economy after years of conflict, most recently the hugely destabilizing conflict with Islamic State terrorists, frustrations have reached a boiling point in the oil-rich south, where the population has failed to see a return in terms of public services in spite of Iraq being the second biggest producer of crude in OPEC, with 153 billion barrels of proven reserves.
According to Middle East Eye, “The oil sector accounts for 89 percent of the state budget and 99 percent of Iraq’s export revenues, but only one percent of jobs as the majority of posts are filled by foreigners.”
Currently, unemployment in Iraq stands at 10.8% according to official numbers (though likely this figure is much higher) and youth unemployment is over twice that number in a country where 60% are under the age of 24.
Interestingly, Iraqi parliament member and firebrand popular Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, fresh off a surprise victory in the May elections wherein he focused on an anti-corruption message, has recently proposed privatizing electrical services for the country. He’s suggested outsourcing to “foreign, non-occupying” businesses, in statements that implied companies based in the West should be banned from operating in Iraq.
To stupid to run an effective government and to stupid to effectively address grievances. They seem to be about 85 IQs.
@ Robert
Wow! I think anyone would find it difficult to run their own affairs considering the levels of outside interference, political cronyism, graft and corruption….
The banana republicism of the world! Thanks to foreign corporate banking and intelligence interests …
Oh to be soo proud!
Watch the documentary No End In Sight about the Iraq war and then come back and talk like you know something
http://freedocumentaries.org/documentary/no-end-in-sight
I’m back; served 1.5 years in Turkey and 2 years as an Officer at HQs SAC and watched enough of that video to know that I already know that history (Yes, NeoCons destroyed Iraq). Couldn’t help but notice how destructive Islam is to them. If the West hadn’t fought Islam for 1,200 years, we would have fallen like the Middle East, North Africa, Constantinople, etc; and we would be hopelessly stupid too. I hope Trump can crush the Leftist and liberals like the low IQ vermin they are; that would be a good start.
@ Robert
You said,
“. I hope Trump can crush the Leftist and liberals like the low IQ vermin they are; that would be a good start.”
Wow! Your superior IQ gives you the “right” to suggest that these people’s “right ” to live come to an end?
What hubris and pride…remember pride comes before the fall.
I wonder what your thoughts are on those of us who were born with mmental deficiencies that prohibit the necessary cognitive abilities to take care of themselves?
Perhaps we should just allow “nature” and natural selection run its course and let the “fittest” of the species prevail?
If yes, then I ask you, what is the difference between Man and the rest of the animals in the animal kingdom?
Even Doctors know the Truth, that does not make them inhumane. God loves your empathy for the needy but beware of Religious Barbarians.
Say what you want, dude. If you had been to Iraq, you know exactly what those people are like. I spent two and a half years there and they’re animals.
If you were to go with your nice air conditioned cloudcity ideals to Iraq, you would quickly see on the ground they don’t work. A lot of well-meaning people went over there and tried to help. Read Inside the Arab Mind. The author is an arab-file and even he can’t avoid the truth about them as fucked-up people. Their own rulers historically know the fellahin will rise up from time to time and you just have to be ready to crack their skulls to get them back to normal again.
For instance, we spent countless dollars and hours putting their fucked-up country back together for them. They’re savages and they don’t care. When we re-wired one southern town for power, they stripped down the wires to sell as scrap. When we gave them bottled water because their water was too dirty to drink, they sold the water. Their rivers from which they get their water and their irrigation are also their garbage dumps and sewers. The stench above the rivers there is enough to smell while flying above the city in a C130.
They don’t understand basic hygiene. Toilet paper and wiping your ass are foreign to them; they just pour water down their backside. That’s why traditionally they eat only with their right hand- the left hand is the shit hand. You can always tell when an Iraqi has been using your latrine, because it’s a mess of pooled water and shit all over the seat (I think they hover). I had to search an Iraqi policeman once who had shit himself and didn’t bother to clean himself up. I don’t mean he smelled, I mean there was a mashed banana in his trousers. Many of the ones I searched also appeared to have pissed themselves.
I mentioned before about the Provincial Reconstruction guy I met who rebuilt an Iraqi police building for them. It was 100% rehabbed when he was done. 2 weeks after turnover, he returned. He said the Iraqis had plugged up the toilet on the second floor. Rather than take the 10 seconds it takes to plunge and clear the toilet, they just shit on every available inch of floor. When the bathroom floor was full of shit, they picked a room down the hall to shit in and started covering THAT floor.
You can’t eat their food without getting sick, either. Only roasted meat is safe, because even if it was left out all day to collect flies, it was roasted on coals just before you got it. We watched them butcher goats right next to their food prep area and leave the offal out to draw flies. Not generally considered good food safety. Their vegetables are raised on shit-filled irrigation canal water and washed with the same shit-filled water that comes from their rivers. If you eat a salad or the sides that come with a kabob plate, you can expect to have giardia, or worse, for about a month.
They’re also inhuman savages to each other. They used to push their children in front of US convoys to force them to stop. They would do every awful thing you can think of to each other. They appear to engage in a lot of incest. And beastiality, too. You can confirm that on youtube.
Iraqis are animals. I would not be surprised if they had a 85IQ, or even a 45. You will never fix that country. It’s just like Eric Peters’ saying about how Africa Wins Always. Pretending your liberal western values can work there is a fantasy. Ascribing to them the same ideals you have is an exercise in self-delusion.
@ gilbert
You said,
“. Pretending your liberal western values can work there is a fantasy. Ascribing to them the same ideals you have is an exercise in self-delusion.”
I live in the West yes, but just because I look at the bigger picture and try to take account of historical, ethical, cultural, regional, familial and religious environmental influencers and try and set my hubris aside when observing individual and group behaviors does not make them liberal values…
Near every point you made in your rant only solidifies your exceptioanlism in your own mind…
Good for you.
I see similar behaviors that you describe here in America from tweakers stealing copper piping to scrap…to people taking showers in the gutters….
When you attempt to generalize a whole group of people a certain way and then give personal experiences as justification, it only makes you look like a douche!
Platos Pubics: Gilberts is telling it like it is for most people there; it is their way, not something we forced on them. Their “religious customs” are bloody beyond the typical Americans understanding; they’d have to see it day after day to grasp it’s for real. Just because some of our own FSA is as bad doesn’t excuse either group. I don’t like insulting people because it will also reflect badly on myself but I consider you an insulting condescending know it all, know nothing liberal moron.
You simply don’t know what you’re talking about. Leave Cloud City and go there for a while. You can call me names, but you haven’t been there. I have.
Quite a bit higher than that: https://iq-research.info/en/average-iq-by-country/iq-iraq
O_o
Link says Iraq’s average IQ is 87.
2 points is really not ‘quite a bit higher’ than 85, is it?
It is if you’re the 85.
Just look what a mess the u.s. government made of this country and these people. Baghdad was a favorite stop of back packing European college kids in the 50’s and 60’s. It elected women to it’s parliament, had a Jewish section no one fucked with and was one of the few places in the Mideast where you could belly up to a bar. Even by western standards it was pretty civilized. Then the NeoRats and the MIC teamed up with the support of supine military sycophants to lay waste to it. And for what good end? Now they have no energy in a place where you can strike oil with a golf tee. Fucking awful.
In a moral country w and his evil maestro cheney would have tomatoes (or shoes) tossed at them every time they showed their ugly mugs. Or worse.
I wouldn’t blame that on the US-they were fucked up before we invaded.
I would blame their misery on islam, which is what keeps women in slavery and legitimates violence for pretty much all purposes. The only reason there were bars in Iraq you could belly up to was because there were Iraqi Chaldean Christians there. Theirs were the only neighborhoods you could buy booze and that’s where the asshat Gulf Arabs went to get their booze, while pretending to be good muslims in their own countries. You can thank the Shiites for practicing their faith and terrorizing the Christians.
Read Churchill’s quote about how the Muslim world. It is as true now as it ever was. And it is true- wherever islam rules, you end up with lagging trade, women treated like animals, shitty services, shitty social organization. Nothing works well. Women might have been better off in the 1950s, but that coincided with the remains of the British imperial system which was under world-wide attack at that point and in retreat. After the Brits withdrew, you had the Baathists, who at least kept the country running. I would much rather have Saddam Hussein and his tribe running Iraq now than Shiite Iran and ISIS. Saddam knew exactly who his people were. He disliked Arabs so much, he would only hire Christians to serve him in his palace, because he considered them cleaner.
Winston C-
How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy. The effects are apparent in many countries. Improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live. A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement; the next of its dignity and sanctity.
The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property—either as a child, a wife, or a concubine—must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men. Individual Moslems may show splendid qualities. Thousands become the brave and loyal soldiers of the Queen: all know how to die. But the influence of the religion paralyzes the social development of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith. It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step; and were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science—the science against which it had vainly struggled—the civilization of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilization of ancient Rome.
I think Ms Albright would disagree with you about who fucked up Iraq first.
Peace
Arabs being arabs…..
@ Musket
What a lazy and cowardly interpretation of events.
Mission Accomplished???
Whose mission and what was accomplished indeed!
I thought we “fixed” Iraq before we left? John
Like they fixed the South during Reconstruction I and II.
Finally, a point we can agree on. But don’t use the yankee lie “reconstruction”. The goal was to suck the economic life out of the south to retard reconstruction. Call it what it was: subjugation. It’s what governments do and when you ‘serve’ it you nourish it.