Baghdad: Massive demonstrations demand ending US military presence in Iraq

Baghdad (ST): Massive demonstrations were staged in Baghdad today in protest against the existence of US troops in Iraq and demanding their withdrawal from the Iraqi soil.

The Iraqi news agency said that scores of thousands of people took to the streets in the centre of Baghdad raising national flags and shouting slogans that denounce the American presence on the Iraqi territories.

Meanwhile, security forces took tight measures and blocked some roads as the massive demonstrations started. 

A number of parliamentary and political blocks considered the demonstrations as a referendum proving the need to evacuate the US forces from Iraq. In statements they made during the demonstration, a number of protesters said that the American military presence in Iraq is the reason behind all the crises witnessed by the country, demanding the immediate implementation of the Iraqi House of Representatives’ decision which provides for the withdrawal of the American and foreign troops from Iraq.

The spokesman for the National Parties Front in Iraq Abdel al-Reda al-Hamid said that the demonstration, in which more than one million Iraqis participated, affirmed a principled stand of all the Iraqis who have unanimously agreed that the decision of forcing the US troops out of Iraq is non-negotiable. He added that if the US forces do not get out of Iraq through political means, the Iraqi people will force them out of Iraq through resistance.

Earlier, the Iraqi House of representatives had voted with absolute majority to end the American military presence in Iraq following the American criminal acts against Iraqi positions and military leaders.

K.Q.