ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – Protesters stormed the Bahraini Embassy compound in the Mansour district of the Iraqi capital Baghdad on Thursday night. It follows a US-backed Middle East economic summit hosted by Bahrain.
According to Iraqi media, protesters lowered the Bahraini flag and replacing it with the Palestinian flag.
Footage shared on social media shows a large crowd outside the embassy waving Palestinian flags.
العراقيون يقتحمون السفارة البحرينية في #بغداد ويرفعون علم فلسطين فوقها. pic.twitter.com/LYi8Lpp0HH
— ZaidBenjamin الحساب البديل (@ZaidBenjamin5) June 27, 2019
No one was hurt in the standoff that lasted more than an hour, AP reports.
Security forces fired into the air to disperse the crowd of nearly 200 protesters, an anonymous security source told AP.
Security Forces have cut off roads leading to embassy and now have the area under control.
Iraqi and Palestinian leaders boycotted the US-organised economic summit in Bahrain earlier on Thursday, which saw steps made towards normalization of relations between the oil-rich Arab kingdoms and Israel.
Jared Kushner, US President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, launched his long-awaited Middle East initiative at the summit, which proposed a $50 billion investment for the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and countries in the region.
Iraqi and Bahraini relations have been strained in recent months after a spat broke out between their foreign ministries.
Bahrain, which has a large and restive population of Shiite Muslims ruled by a Sunni minority royal family, took exception to comments made by Iraqi Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, when he called on Bahrain's royal family to abdicate.
Bahrain's foreign minister Khalid Bin Ahmad al-Khalifa branded Sadr “stupid” and, in Arabic verse, liken him to a “dog”. He also called Iraq an Iranian puppet. Iraq's foreign ministry demanded an apology.
Recovering from its brutal war with the Islamic State (ISIS), and caught between US-Iran tensions, Baghdad has tried to keep out of regional conflicts.
