BAGHDAD -- Anti-government protesters surrounded a key shrine Tuesday in the southern city of Najaf, as Iraq's political leaders continued talks over selecting a new prime minister after weeks of widespread unrest.
Five rockets landed inside Ain al-Asad air base, a sprawling complex in Western Anbar which hosts U.S. forces, without causing any casualties and little damage, said a statement Tuesday from Iraq's security forces. The statement gave no further details.
President Barham Salih met with Iraq's main political blocs as a 15-day constitutional deadline to name the next prime minister nears, two Iraqi officials said. Prime Minister Adil Abdul-Madi announced his resignation Friday. The Sairoon bloc, led by influential Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, addressed Salih in a letter and said they gave protesters the right to support a premier of their choice.
Tens of protesters gathered around the Hakim shrine in the southern holy city of Najaf, a police official said. The demonstrators demanded that al-Sadr help them enter and symbolically take control of the shrine. Al-Sadr commands Saraya Salam, a powerful militia group. The protesters believe the shrine is a center for Iranian intelligence operations, the police official said.
After hours of tense standoff, a few protesters and some elderly tribal sheikhs were permitted to enter the shrine and inspect it.
Officials all requested anonymity in line with regulations.
Najaf has been one of the flash points in the protest movement, after demonstrators torched the Iranian Consulate there last week. The Hakim shrine has been the focus of recent violence. Three protesters were killed and 24 wounded Saturday as security forces used live rounds to disperse them from the site. The southern city is the seat of the country's Shiite religious authority.
At least 400 people have died since the leaderless uprising shook Iraq on Oct. 1, with thousands of Iraqis taking to the streets in Baghdad and the predominantly Shiite southern Iraq decrying corruption, poor services, lack of jobs and calling for an end to the political system that was imposed after the 2003 U.S. invasion.
Security forces dispersed crowds with live rounds, tear gas and sound bombs last week in Nasiriyah and Najaf, leading to heavy casualties and drawing condemnation from Washington and the United Nations.
In an address Tuesday to the U.N. Security Council, the top United Nations envoy to Iraq, Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert, deplored the continued use of live ammunition and "nonlethal devices" like tear gas that have caused "horrific injuries or death." She condemned what she said were "unlawful arrests and detentions" targeting anti-government demonstrators.
The U.N. envoy also questioned the status of the government's earlier investigations into the use of live fire and other violence, noting that though arrest warrants had been issued, perpetrators had not been taken to account.
David Schenker, the assistant secretary of state for Near East Affairs, called the killing of protesters in Nasiriyah "shocking and abhorrent," in remarks to reporters late Monday.
"The Iraqi people are calling for genuine reform implemented by trustworthy leaders who will put Iraq's national interests first. Without that commitment to reform, it makes little difference who the prime minister is," he added.
Salih met with key political groups to come up with a compromise candidate for the premiership. The constitution requires parliament's largest bloc to name a candidate within 15 days. Then the prime minister-designate has 30 days to form a government.
Officials and experts warned of a potential political crisis because of disagreement among Iraqi leaders over which parties control the largest bloc of seats in parliament.
Abdul-Mahdi's nomination as prime minister was the product of an uneasy alliance between parliament's two main blocs -- Sairoon and Fatah, which includes leaders associated with the paramilitary Popular Mobilization Units headed by Hadi al-Amiri.
In a sign that the political dispute remained unresolved, Sairoon addressed Salih in a letter Tuesday reiterating that it was the largest parliamentary bloc with the right to name the next premier.
Based on this, the statement said, "Sairoon cedes this right to the demonstrators." It did not cite any constitutional provisions that would allow the protesters to actually participate in the nomination of the next prime minister.
A Section on 12/04/2019