Iraqi protesters clashed with police and security forces in Baghdad for two days this week following the resignation of cleric and party leader Muqtada al-Sadr, who called for a revolution and pushed for mass protests after he failed to form a government in parliament.
The conflict grew deadly, with al-Sadr’s supporters storming the Iraqi government’s offices in the Green Zone and refusing to leave until al-Sadr called them off and instructed them to go home.
“I had decided not to interfere in political affairs, so now I announce my final retirement,” al-Sadr tweeted Monday. “I ask God to forgive those who took up arms, and I ask them to ask for a lot of forgiveness and not to return to such an act in a living future.”
By that time, around 30 people had been killed and 700 injured in the violent clashes.
Al-Sadr’s political movement, called the Sadrist movement, rose out of the collapse of the government of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, who was ousted by U.S. forces in 2003 and executed in 2006.
Much of the current conflict in Iraqi politics stretches back to an ancient religious feud between Shia, or Shiite, Muslims and Sunni Muslims.
The fall of Hussein, a member of the Sunni minority, led to a Shia takeover in parliament and the rise of al-Sadr, then a Shiite cleric and a leader of the Mahdi, an armed militia that has waged war against both American and rival Iraqi forces in the wake of the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.
Al-Sadr’s father was a powerful cleric who shaped contemporary Shiite thought.
Amid the political turmoil, al-Sadr has remained a strong force in the country’s politics through the Sadrist movement, including when his supporters stormed Baghdad’s Green Zone in 2016 in an anti-corruption drive.
In 2018, al-Sadr’s political bloc — a mix of communists, secular groups and his followers — formed its first government in parliament.
In the latest elections in October 2021, al-Sadr’s party again won a majority of seats in parliament.
However, al-Sadr failed to form a broad enough coalition to form a government under Iraq’s consociational democracy, in which power is shared between different social groups.
Al-Sadr sought to change this rule and allow for a simple majority government that excludes certain opposition parties, but failed. He resigned from government in June along with 73 of his members of parliament.
He then called for a “spontaneous peaceful revolution” at the end of July, repeating rhetoric about a “deep state,” rigged elections and “corruption” in the government.
In early August, al-Sadr’s supporters stormed the Green Zone, where they camped out until the clashes turned deadly this week.