Angry Iraq protesters attack US embassy over strikes

Several thousand Iraqi protesters attacked the US embassy in Baghdad on Tuesday, breaching its outer wall and chanting “Death to America!” in anger over weekend air strikes that killed fighters.

It was the first time in years protesters have been able to reach the US embassy, which is sheltered behind a series of checkpoints in the high-security Green Zone.

A stream of men in military fatigues, as well as some women, marched through those checkpoints to the embassy’s walls with no apparent reaction from Iraqi security forces.

Protesters threw rocks and wrenched security cameras off the walls.

US marines inside the compound fired tear gas and flash bangs to disperse the crowd, which had ignored calls over megaphones to back away from the embassy.

The demonstrators waved flags in support of the Hashed al-Shaabi, a network of Iraqi arnmed groups.

On Sunday, at least 25 fighters from a Hashed faction known as Kataeb Hezbollah (Hezbollah Brigades) were killed in US air strikes on a western base.

The strikes were in response to a 36-rocket attack last week that killed one US contractor working at an Iraqi base, the latest in a string of attacks on areas where American troops are deployed.

They have not been claimed but US security assessments have largely blamed them on Kataeb Hezbollah.

The United States has around 5,200 troops deployed across Iraq.