Protesters stormed the Swedish embassy in central Baghdad early Thursday morning, scaling its walls and setting it ablaze in protest of Sweden’s planned burning of the Holy Quran.
The Swedish foreign ministry press office issued a statement condemning the attack and emphasizing the importance of Iraqi authorities protecting diplomatic missions.
According to posts in a popular Telegram group linked to the influential cleric and other pro-Sadr media, Thursday’s demonstration was called by supporters of cleric Muqtada Sadr to protest the second planned Quran burning in Sweden in weeks.
Sadr, one of Iraq’s most powerful figures, has hundreds of thousands of followers whom he has summoned to the streets on several occasions, most recently last summer when they occupied Baghdad’s heavily fortified Green Zone and engaged in deadly clashes.
According to Swedish news agency TT, Swedish police approved an application for a public meeting outside the Iraqi embassy in Stockholm on Thursday.
Also read: Muslim man wins hearts by deciding not to burn Torah, Bible in Sweden
According to the application, the applicant wishes to burn the Quran and the Iraqi flag, according to TT.
A series of videos posted to the One Baghdad Telegram group showed people gathering around the embassy around 1 am on Thursday (2200 GMT on Wednesday), chanting pro-Sadr slogans, and storming the embassy complex an hour later.
“Yes, yes to the Quran,” protesters chanted.
Videos later showed smoke rising from a building in the embassy complex and protesters standing on its roof. Reuters could not independently verify the authenticity of the videos.
The Iraqi foreign ministry also condemned the incident, saying in a statement that the Iraqi government had directed security forces to conduct an immediate investigation, identify perpetrators, and hold them accountable.
According to Reuters witnesses, security forces had deployed inside the embassy by dawn on Thursday, and smoke rose from the building as firefighters extinguished stubborn embers.
The majority of the protesters had dispersed, with only a few dozen remaining outside the embassy.
Late last month, Sadr called for protests against Sweden and the expulsion of the Swedish ambassador following an Iraqi man’s burning of the Quran in Stockholm.
The man was charged with agitation against an ethnic or national group by Swedish police. He described himself as an Iraqi refugee seeking to ban the Quran, Islam’s central religious text, in a newspaper interview.
In the aftermath of the Quran burning, there were two major protests outside the Swedish embassy in Baghdad, with protesters breaching the embassy grounds on one occasion.
Several Muslim governments, including Iraq, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, Jordan, and Morocco, condemned the incident, with Iraq seeking the man’s extradition to face trial in the country.
The US also condemned it but added that Sweden’s granting of the permit was in support of free expression and not an endorsement of the action.
