Iraqi Cleric Sayyed Moqtada Sadr Calls for Anti-US Protests amid New Rocket Attack

By Staff, Agencies

Iraq’s prominent cleric Sayyed Moqtada Sadr called Tuesday for a peaceful "million-strong march" against US troops in Iraq, days after parliament urged their departure following Washington's assassination of an Iranian general in a drone strike.

Further upping the pressure on the American deployment, Katyusha rockets on Tuesday night targeted an Iraqi airbase north of Baghdad where US-led coalition forces are based, in the latest attack on American forces in the country.

"The skies, land and sovereignty of Iraq are being violated every day by occupying forces," Sayyed al-Sadr, a populist Shiite politician and cleric, wrote on Twitter.

He urged Iraqis to hold "a million-strong, peaceful, unified demonstration to condemn the American presence and its violations", without giving a date.

Washington on January 3 assassinated Iran's revered Quds Force chief Qassem Soleimani in a Baghdad drone strike that also martyred a senior Iraqi military official.

The Iraqi parliament responded by voting on January 5 to oust foreign forces – including some 5,200 American troops.

Bases where US forces are stationed have been under a steady stream of rocket attacks for several months that have killed one American contractor and one Iraqi soldier.

On Tuesday, a new rocket attack targeted the Camp Taji airbase north of Baghdad, the Iraqi military said, without specifying how many rockets hit the base.