Iraq protesters try to storm US Embassy after airstrikes
US-led air strikes were directed at several bases belonging to the Hezbollah Brigades
Baghdad - Hundreds of Iraqi mourners tried to storm the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad Tuesday following deadly U.S. airstrikes this week that killed 25 fighters from an Iran-backed Shiite militia in Iraq.
The mourners held funerals for the killed in a Baghdad neighborhood, after which they marched on to the heavily fortified Green Zone on Tuesday and kept walking till they reached the sprawling U.S. Embassy there.
AP journalists saw the crowd try to storm the embassy, shouting "Down, down USA!''
Security guards were seen retreating to the inside of the embassy as the protesters hurled water bottles and smashed security cameras outside the embassies.
Protesters also hung yellow flags belonging to the Kataeb Hezbollah militia backed by Iran on the walls of the embassy.
On Sunday, the US-led air strikes were directed at several bases belonging to the Hezbollah Brigades, one of the most radical factions of Hashed al-Shaabi, a Tehran-backed Iraqi paramilitary coalition.
The strikes "killed 25 and wounded 51," according to the Hashed, which holds major sway in Iraq.
The attack was in retaliation for the death Friday of a US civilian contractor in Kirkuk in a Hezbollah Brigades rocket attack.