BAGHDAD (AFP) – Protesters set fire to Sweden’s embassy in the Iraqi capital Baghdad early yesterday, an AFP journalist said, ahead of a planned burning of Al-Quran in Sweden.
Swedish authorities had approved an assembly to be held later that day outside the Iraqi embassy in Stockholm, where organisers plan to burn a copy of Al-Quran as well as an Iraqi flag.
Iraqis have been angered by previous events in Sweden and yesterday’s protest in Baghdad was organised by supporters of the turbulent religious leader Moqtada Sadr. An AFP correspondent reported smoke rising from the Swedish embassy building and dozens of demonstrators still on the scene, while large numbers of Iraqi riot police had been deployed.
“We are mobilised today to denounce the burning of Al-Quran, which is all about love and faith,” protester Hassan Ahmed told AFP. “We demand that the Swedish government and the Iraqi government stop this type of initiative.”
Some protesters were holding up copies of Al-Quran, while others were holding up portraits of Mohamed al-Sadr, an important religious cleric and the father of Moqtada Sadr. “We didn’t wait until morning, we broke in at dawn and set fire to the Swedish embassy,” a young demonstrator in Baghdad told AFP yesterday, before chanting the leader’s name. Several fire engines were also on site to extinguish the blaze, the AFP correspondent said. It was not immediately clear whether the embassy was empty at the time of the attack, or if staff had been evacuated.
Iraq’s foreign ministry condemned the embassy torching and called on security forces to identify those responsible.
“The Iraqi government has instructed the relevant security services to conduct an urgent investigation and take all necessary measures to uncover the circumstances of the incident and identify the perpetrators,” the ministry said in a statement.
