KDP office attacked again in Baghdad

"(The) KRG (Kurdistan Regional Government) always aim for strong & firm relations with Baghdad."

Wladimir van Wilgenburg 2022/03/28 11:03

The office of the KDP was attacked late Sunday by supporters of Iran-aligned groups (Photo: Screenshot from social media)

Kurdistan KDP Saving the Homeland Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani Muqtada al-Sadr Popular Mobilization Forces

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – The Kurdistan Democratic Party's office in Iraq's capital Baghdad was attacked again on Sunday by hundreds of supporters of Iran-aligned armed groups, who attempted to set it on fire.

"Once again the @KDPinfo office in Baghdad was attacked by some individuals who were supporters of some armed groups & political parties," tweeted Lawk Ghafuri, the Head of Foreign Media Relations of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) Council of Ministers, on Monday.

Once again the @KDPinfo office in Baghdad was attacked by some individuals who were supporters of some armed groups & political parties. KRG always aim for strong & firm relations with Baghdad, and any kind of chaos and violence is not in the interest of #Iraq nor its people.
— Lawk Ghafuri (@LawkGhafuri) March 28, 2022

"(The) KRG (Kurdistan Regional Government) always aim for strong & firm relations with Baghdad, and any kind of chaos and violence is not in the interest of #Iraq nor its people."

The office was attacked after an individual named Dr. Nayif Kurdistani allegedly insulted the Shia religious authorities in Iraq on social media.

His tweet was seen as insulting to Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, Iraq's top Shia cleric.

The KDP condemned the tweet and underlined that the leading Kurdish party respects "all religious references" and "clerics" and advised its supporters to respect all Islamic references and other religions.

The Kurdistan Region's Interior Ministry issued an arrest warrant for Dr. Kurdistani on Monday for insulting "religious and national symbols."

The attack comes amidst disputes between the the Saving the Homeland' political alliance of Sadrist Movement leader Muqtada al-Sadr, who won the most votes in the October parliamentary elections, and the Iran-backed Shiite Coordination Framework over the government formation process. The KDP and the Sunni al-Siyada alliance are part of this coalition.

The Iraqi Parliament failed to elect a president on Saturday after Iran-backed groups boycotted the session, and the quorum required to elect the next president was not met.

As a result, the Iraqi Parliament postponed the session to elect the country's next president until Wednesday.

Sadrist Movement leader Muqtada al-Sadr thanked all the parliament members who attended Saturday's vote to elect a new president.

He also called upon those parliament members to attend Wednesday's vote along with others who didn't participate in Saturday's session.

On Oct. 17, supporters of the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), an umbrella organization of largely Iran-aligned Shia groups, burned the KDP office in Baghdad in a move that was widely condemned.