Armed men attacked anti-government demonstrators at their main protest site in central Baghdad late Friday, killing at least 23 people.Police and medical sources in Iraq’s capital said more than 127 others were injured by gunfire and stabbings and that three police officers were among those killed.The attack ranks among the most deadly in Baghdad since thousands of Iraqi’s launched street protests on October 1 demanding broad political reforms and a halt to Iran’s influence in Iraqi affairs.Heavily armed, masked gunmen, who security forces said they could not identify, targeted the protesters near a main square in downtown Baghdad.Security sources said gunmen entered the main street leading to the square in a convoy on Saturday morning, firing guns during their approach.They roamed the area near the square but Iraqi security personnel forced them to turn around at a checkpoint.The gunfire continued into early Saturday after the assailants first unleashed the deadly attack Friday on Baghdad’s Khilani Square and Sinak Bridge.
The incidents came one week after Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi said he would resign after two months of anti-government protests.Friday’s attack occurred only hours after the U.S. placed sanctions on three Iranian-backed Iraqi militia leaders who Washington accuses of directing the killing of the protesters.The head of Iraq’s Sairoon political party said a drone attacked his home in the holy city of Najaf early Saturday, according to statements from the party.Muqtada al-Sadr, an influential Shi’ite cleric who has supported the anti-government protesters, was not home at the time of the attack.The head of the party’s political committee denounced the drone attack and called for an emergency parliamentary session to discuss the violence.Nearly 450 people have died and about 20,000 others were wounded since the demonstrations erupted on October 1 in Baghdad and in Shi’ite-majority areas in southern Iraq.
…