BAGHDAD — Three rockets were fired Wednesday
at
Baghdad’s Green Zone, wounding seven security force personnel as parliament
was holding its first session in two months, Iraq’s security forces said.
اضافة اعلان
The parliament, at the center of a months-long
political paralysis, met for the first since deadly unrest in August to vote on
the resignation of its speaker.
“One rocket fell in front of the Iraqi parliament,”
the government said in a statement, adding the number of casualties had risen
to seven, after providing an initial toll of four wounded including one
officer.
The rockets fell in different parts of Baghdad’s
fortified Green Zone, which houses Western embassies and government offices.
Iraq’s deeply divided political factions have failed
to form a new government since inconclusive elections in October 2021, and the
last session of parliament dates back to July 23.
Later in July, supporters of Shiite cleric
Moqtada Al-Sadr stormed the assembly and staged a month-long sit-in on its grounds.
Tensions boiled over into clashes on August 29
between the Sadrists, rival Iran-backed factions and the army in which more
than 30 demonstrators were killed.
Iraqi media said 222 out of 235 members of
parliament present at Wednesday’s session voted against the resignation of
speaker Mohammed Al-Halbussi, in what analysts had described a vote of
confidence.
Hundreds of Sadr’s followers demonstrated at a
square in central Baghdad in protest at the parliament’s session.
The violence in August followed months of
disagreements between Sadr and his rivals within Iraq’s majority Shiite camp,
as the impasse has left the country without a new government, prime minister or
president since the elections almost a year ago.
Iraq’s standoff
pits Sadr against the Iran-backed Coordination Framework, which includes
lawmakers from the party of his longtime foe, ex-prime minister
Nuri Al-Maliki.
Sadr wants snap elections and the dissolution of
parliament but the rival Shiite bloc wants a new head of government appointed
before any new polls are held.
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