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BAGHDAD — Thousands of protesters clashed with riot police in Iraq's capital and across the south on Thursday, the third day of mass rallies that have left 28 dead.

Defying curfews, tear gas and live rounds, they gathered by truckfuls to vent their anger against corruption, unemployment and poor services in the biggest challenge yet to Prime Minister Adel Abdel Mahdi.

As dusk fell in Baghdad, crowds swelled around the capital's oil and industry ministry, pledging to march to the capital's emblematic Tahrir (Liberation) Square.

"We'll keep going until the government falls", pledged 22-year-old Ali, an unemployed university graduate.

"I've got nothing but 250 lira [20 US cents] in my pocket while government officials have millions," he told AFP.

Most demonstrators carried the Iraqi tricolour while others brandished flags bearing the name of Hussein, the Prophet Mohammed's grandson and a revered figure in Shiite Islam.

Riot police and army troops fired at the ground from automatic weapons mounted on military vehicles, the bullets ricocheting into the crowd.

Wounded protesters piled into small tuk-tuks to reach hospitals.

"Why do the police shoot at Iraqis like them? They suffer like us — they should help and protect us," said protester Abu Jaafar.

The three days of demonstrations have left 28 people dead, including two police officers, and over 1,000 people have been wounded.

More than half of those killed in the last three days have been in the southern city of Nasiriyah, where six protesters were shot dead and dozens wounded on Thursday alone.

Nearby Amarah has also seen significant bloodshed, with medics and security sources reporting four protesters shot dead on Thursday.

Later in the day, two protestors and a police officer were killed in Diwaniyah, 150 kilometres south of Baghdad, and a curfew was subsequently imposed.

Anger boils over 

Rallies began on Tuesday in Baghdad but have since spread across the mainly Shiite south, including the provinces of Dhi Qar, Missan, Najaf, Basra, Wasit and Babylon.

Several cities have imposed curfews, but protesters flooded the streets regardless.

The Kurdish northern regions and Sunni western provinces, meanwhile, have remained relatively calm.

The grievances echo those of mass demonstrations in Iraq’s south a little over a year ago which were prompted by a severe water shortage that caused a widespread health crisis.

Since then, southern provinces have accused the central government of failing to address profound infrastructural gaps, chief among them youth unemployment.

Tensions have been exacerbated by the closure of government offices in Baghdad and calls by firebrand cleric Moqtada Al Sadr for “a general strike”.

Sadr was behind the last round of major protests in Baghdad in 2016, when his supporters stormed the Green Zone, home to some ministries and embassies.

His involvement appears much more limited this time, but if his followers join the protests en masse, the rallies will likely balloon even further.

‘Draconian measures’ 

With internet access virtually shut off, demonstrators on Thursday struggled to communicate with each other or post footage of the latest clashes.

Approximately 75 per cent of Iraq is “offline” after major network operators “intentionally restricted” access, according to cybersecurity monitor NetBlocks.

The United Nations, European Union and United Kingdom have all appealed for calm, while rights group Amnesty International slammed the response to protests.

“It is outrageous that Iraqi security forces time and again deal with protesters with such brutality using lethal and unnecessary force,” said Amnesty’s Lynn Maalouf.

She said the internet blackout was a “draconian measure... to silence protests away from cameras and the world’s eyes”.

The protests appear to be largely spontaneous and de-centralised, with virtually no party insignia or slogans spotted.

Instead, demonstrators brandished Iraqi flags, posters demanding a “real country” and even pictures of an Iraqi general who was recently decommissioned after reported pressure by pro-Iran factions.

Their rage has not been quelled by the government’s relatively modest reactions.

Several Iraqis said they received on Thursday text messages from Abdel Mahdi’s office giving a number for a hotline that protesters could call to air their grievances.

The premier, who has not addressed the demonstrators directly, has also infuriated many of his compatriots by blaming the violence on “aggressors who... deliberately created casualties”.

Abdel Mahdi came to power in October 2018 as a consensus candidate, after last year’s popular demonstrations effectively ended his predecessor Haider Al Abadi’s chances at a second term.

He pledged to reform inefficient institutions, eradicate corruption and fight unemployment — unfulfilled promises that appear to have pushed protesters over the edge this week.

In particular, anger has boiled over at the staggering level of youth unemployment, which stands at around 25 per cent or double the overall rate, according to the World Bank.

TUNIS — The publication by US authorities of a $1-million international lobbying contract to promote a jailed frontrunner in Tunisia's presidential election has triggered an uproar in the North African country.

The US Justice Department published a copy of the deal with Canada-based Dickens and Maddison to lobby for imprisoned media mogul Nabil Karoui "in the United States, the Russian Federation, the United Nation... in order to attaining the presidency of the Republic of Tunisia".

The one-year contract, dated August 19, far exceeds Tunisia's limits on campaign spending.

The document, first published by the Al Monitor news site, was inked three months after Karoui formalised his candidacy and just days before he was arrested on August 23 on charges of tax evasion and money laundering.

It is signed by the firm’s president Ari Ben Menashe — who describes himself as a former Israeli intelligence officer — and pledges the company will “strive to arrange meetings with the Honourable Donald Trump” and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The company will also work “to obtain material support for the push for the Presidency”, the contract says.

It shows the company was paid an initial sum of $250,000, with the remaining $750,000 expected by mid-October.

Tunisia’s electoral commission ISIE capped campaign spending at 1.7 million dinars ($630,000) for the first round of the presidential vote on September 15 and 1 million dinars in the lead-up to the final run-off on October 13.

Karoui came in second in the first round with 15.6 per cent, behind independent law professor Kais Saied.

In the run-up to key legislative polls on October 6 and the final presidential vote a week later, the publication of the contract has sparked a firestorm on Tunisian social media pages.

Lawmaker Issam Chebbi called on “all institutions to fulfil their responsibilities”, in a post directed at ISIE to enforce spending limits.

Several requests for Karoui’s release to campaign fairly have been rejected by Tunisian courts.

Other Tunisian political leaders have hired international lobbyists, according to US justice department documents, but for smaller amounts.

The Islamist-inspired Ennahdha party works with several lobbyists.

The BCW consulting firm said in August that Ennahdha had paid it $7,500 for help in “contacting media and policymakers”, including several state department officials.

Public relations firm Burson-Marsteller, part of BCW, said in February the party had paid a total of $200,000 to lobby US officials and journalists.

TEHRAN — The National Museum of Iran opened on Wednesday an exhibition of around 300 cuneiform clay tablets returned from the United States after a drawn-out legal saga.

Found at the ruins of Persepolis, capital of the Persian Achaemenid Empire (6th - 4th c. BC) in the south of Iran, these works belonged to a group of 1,783 clay tablets or tablet fragments returned to Iran by the Oriental Institute at the University of Chicago.

In the 1930s, the university had received on loan around 30,000 tablets or tablet fragments found at Persepolis for research purposes, Iranian media reported.

The proceedings only ended in February 2018 when a US Supreme Court decision banned the seizure of the works.

But the reimposition of US sanctions on the Islamic republic since August 2018 has complicated the return of the antiquities to Iran.

This includes some administrative “exchanges” with the US, in particular with the US Treasury, which must give the okay, head of Iranian museums Mohammad Reza Kargar told AFP.

But, he said, “there is nothing to worry about” regarding the return of further works.

“We fought very hard to keep them safe and spent millions of dollars so that we could return them” to Iran, said Christopher Woods, head of the University of Chicago’s Oriental Institute, referring to the legal fees incurred by the institute up until the Supreme Court decision.

“Hopefully we’ll return the second batch much faster and it will be a much larger group,” he added.

Matthew Stolper, professor emeritus at the Oriental Institute, emphasised the scientific interest of the works.

They helped further the understanding of “how [Achaemenid] society was organised, how basic institutions of control and support worked”, he told AFP.

“We’ve learned the names of some of the important people in the ruling class,” he added, “but more importantly, we learned how they ruled”.

QAMISHLI, Syria — Hundreds of Kurds demonstrated in northeast Syria on Wednesday in protest at their minority community's "exclusion" from a United Nations-backed committee tasked with drafting a new constitution for the war-devastated country.

Carrying placards, demonstrators gathered in front of UN offices in the Kurdish-majority city of Qamishli.

"It's our right to participate in the drafting of the constitution," read one sign.

The United Nations on September 23 announced the long-awaited formation of the committee to include 150 members, split evenly between Syria's government, the opposition and Syrian civil society.

Individual Kurdish representatives linked to the Syrian opposition or civil society groups are part of the constitutional committee.

But the Kurdish administration in northeast Syria that controls nearly 30 per cent of the country has said its exclusion was "unjust".

Talaat Younes, a Kurdish administration official, stressed the need to include "all components of Syrian society".

Around him, men and women carried portraits of Kurdish fighters who had died battling the Daesh terror group in Syria.

Syria's Kurds led the US-backed fight against Daesh in northern and eastern Syria, expelling the extremist group from their last major redoubt in the country in March.

"Our military force has achieved significant success. We must have representatives on this committee," said Hashem Shawish, one of the protesters.

Long marginalised, Syria's Kurds have largely stayed out of Syria's eight-year civil war, instead setting up their own institutions in areas under their control.

They have been sidelined from UN-led peace talks as well as a parallel Russian-backed negotiation track, mainly due to objections by Turkey, which considers them to be terrorists.

Mutlu Civiroglu, an expert on Kurdish affairs, said he believed the Kurds had pushed hard to be included.

But neighbouring Turkey, as well as the Damascus government and its backer Russia, were against it, he said.

"The Syrian government always sees the Kurds as a problem to be dealt with sooner or later. It's in their interest as well that the Kurds are left out," he said.

The war in Syria has killed more than 370,000 people and displaced millions since erupting in 2011 with the repression of anti-government protests.

BAGHDAD — Popular protests multiplied across the Iraqi capital on Wednesday, as demonstrators braved live fire and tear gas from security forces in rallies that have left three dead over the past day.

The demonstrations are the first major challenge to Prime Minister Adel Abdel Mahdi, who formed his government a year ago this month and who controversially blamed the violence on "aggressors" among the protesters.

Starting early Wednesday, crowds gathered in a half-dozen neighbourhoods across Baghdad, with riot police attempting to disperse them using tear gas and firing live rounds into the air.

Later they regrouped and began heading towards the capital's iconic Tahrir Square for the second day, railing against state corruption, failing public services and unemployment.

Riot police have sealed off several main roads, as well as access to the square and the adjacent Jumhuriya bridge.

Security forces feared protesters would cross the Tigris river into the Green Zone, which hosts government buildings and embassies and was walled-off until just a few months ago.

"I came out today in support of my brothers in Tahrir Square," said Abdallah Walid, 27, in the southern neighbourhood of Zaafaraniya.

Protesters were burning tyres on streets lined with riot police vehicles.

"We want jobs and better public services. We've been demanding them for years and the government has never responded," he said.

Calls for restraint 

Journalists covering protests in central Baghdad said security forces had assaulted them and detained one of their colleagues.

"No state would attack its own people like this. We're being peaceful, but they fired," said unemployed graduate Mohammad Jubury in the nearby Al Shaab district.

Medical sources said about a dozen people were admitted to hospitals across Baghdad on Wednesday, most of them suffering from tear gas inhalation.

One protester died of wounds sustained in the aftermath of Tuesday's violence, medics and security sources told AFP on Wednesday, bringing the total toll to three dead.

A demonstrator had died on Tuesday in Baghdad, where 200 people were also wounded, and another had died in the south, health officials said.

Riot police had used water cannons, rubber bullets and live rounds to break up the protest of around 1,000 people in Tahrir Square on Tuesday.

Heavy gunfire was heard into the night around the square and in the capital's Sadr City district where the funeral was held for the protester killed in Baghdad.

It was not clear if bullets were fired directly at protesters or into the air.

The day's bloodshed drew condemnation from President Barham Saleh, who urged "restraint and the respect for the law".

"Peaceful protest is a constitutional right granted to citizens," he said late Tuesday.

The UN's top official in Iraq, Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert, expressed "grave concern" on Wednesday, saying she "deeply regrets the casualties".

She urged authorities to "exercise restraint in their handling of the protests".

'Aggressors' 

Unusually for Iraq, no political faction had explicitly called for Tuesday's protest, which appeared to be largely spontaneous.

The liberal newspaper Al Bayina Al Jadida said the protests were, "for the first time without flag, without poster or party slogan".

They follow months of simmering frustration with Abdel Mahdi over a perceived lack of progress on corruption, unemployment or services.

Routine power cuts leave consumers without mains electricity for up to 20 hours a day and, according to the World Bank, youth unemployment runs at around 25 per cent, or double the adult rate.

Protests over the same issues engulfed the southern city of Basra last summer and effectively ended Abdel Mahdi's predecessor Haider Al Abadi's chances of a second term.

Abdel Mahdi now faces a similar challenge.

He convened his national security council for an emergency meeting on Wednesday, after paying tribute to the security forces and blaming the violence on "aggressors who... deliberately created casualties".

Interior ministry spokesman Saad Maan told state media on Tuesday that "infiltrators were behind the violent acts in the protests today".

Their statements drew widespread online criticism, as some other politicians had thrown their weight behind the protesters.

Nationalist cleric Moqtada Al Sadr called for a "fair investigation" into the events in Tahrir Square.

Parliament, too, has ordered a probe into the violence and its human rights committee criticised security forces for their "suppression" of the demonstrations.

TUNIS — Rached Ghannouchi, longstanding head of Tunisia's Islamist-inspired Ennahdha, has taken to the streets in his first legislative election campaign in the wake of disappointing results for the party in a presidential poll.

At 78, Ghannouchi has led Ennahdha since it was founded almost 40 years ago, carrying the movement to victory in 2011 elections, just months after the party reemerged from underground following the revolution that ousted autocrat Zine Al Abidine Ben Ali.

A divisive figure, Ghannouchi who has never run for office is standing for the first time in the October 6 legislative elections.

It was Abdelfattah Mourou — a lawyer seen as a moderate — who was the party’s first presidential candidate, leading to his elimination in a first round of polling on September 15.

Turning up in a black luxury sedan to campaign in the streets of Bab Jdid, a popular neighbourhood of Tunis, Ghannouchi, wearing a simple button-down shirt, shook hands and spoke to constituents.

But three weeks after the presidential poll saw voters reject the governing parties, including Ennahdha, the welcome was lukewarm in the streets. Called “sheikh” out of respect by followers, Ghannouchi also faced jeers.

“We voted for them [Ennahdha] but today we are living on bread and water, that dog Ghannouchi!” said one resident, Fatima Kassraoui.

“Our sons found neither work nor hope here, so they’ve left secretly [for Europe] and they’ve disappeared. It’s because of him,” said the veiled woman in her fifties.

‘Modern Islam’ 

Tunisians blame the political class for a sluggish economy with high unemployment and inflation, persistent causes of social stress.

“They are thieves. We had a revolution and they are filling their bellies, but we have seen nothing but misery,” another resident said.

A neighbour tried to convince him otherwise, saying: “Ennahdha is modern Islam, and they have been put in prison for their ideas” during Ben Ali’s rule.

Accusations of ties to extremist groups have also resurfaced during the campaign, especially as Ghannouchi is running against Basma Khalfaoui, widow of leftist opposition leader Chokri Belaid who was assassinated in 2013.

Belaid’s killing was claimed by extremists linked to Daesh, and while 24 defendants have been on trial over his murder since 2015, the case has been repeatedly adjourned.

Ennahdha has been accused of complicity in the assassination by its detractors, including Khalfaoui.

“We are used to going door-to-door, this discontent is democracy,” said Imed Hammami, a former minister and current campaign manager for Ghannouchi.

But “given the results of the presidential election, we have decided to reduce the number of big meetings and be more modest to show our connection” (to the people), he told AFP.

Internal challenge 

Ghannouchi is running at a time when his position in the party has been challenged and he can no longer seek re-election as its leader.

The strategy of striking alliances with ruling centrist parties in the post-Ben Ali era has been criticised by Ennahdha’s base and undermined the party’s credibility as a force for change.

In a first such act of insubordination in the ranks, Ghannouchi’s former cabinet director Zoubair Chehoudi resigned in mid-September, calling on him to “stay home or at the mosque”.

He condemned the intervention of the party head and his son-in-law, Rafik Abdelsallem, in candidate nominations, accusing them of working against women and young people.

Some polls ahead of Sunday’s legislative polls expect Ennahdha to win less than 40 seats out of 217 in parliament, down from its current tally of 68.

Historian Slaheddine Jourchi warned that a fresh alliance with ruling parties would lead to a “division and collapse of the party”, leaving Ennahdha no choice but to move toward the opposition.

TUNIS  — Millions of Tunisians will head to the ballot box on October 6 to elect their parliamentary representatives in a key vote overshadowed by presidential polls.

Here are five things to know about the parliamentary vote.

 When? 

Voting will take place in a single round on Sunday October 6.

The parliamentary election will be the second since the adoption of a new constitution in 2014, and the third since the 2011 uprising that toppled long-time dictator Zine Al Abidine Ben Ali.

Preliminary results are expected on October 9

Who is running? 

More than 15,000 candidates, running on more than 1,500 lists, are competing for 217 seats.

At least a third of the lists are independent, adding to the challenge of understanding a political landscape already fractured into a multitude of parties with few substantive differences.

The fortunes of the main party in parliament, the Islamist-inspired Ennahdha, have flagged of late.

Its leader Rached Ghannouchi is thought to want to lead the assembly.

The Nidaa Tounes Party won big in 2014 but is unlikely to repeat the performance. A big tent party founded on an anti-Islamist platform, Nidaa Tounes later allied with Ennahdha but has since splintered.

Ex-Nidaa Tounes members have formed several new parties in recent months.

Tahya Tounes was launched by Prime Minister Youssef Chahed, who was knocked out of the first round of the presidential election, while Qalb Tounes was created by jailed media magnate Nabil Karoui.

Other parties are presenting fresh faces. The Aich Tounsi movement is financed by entrepreneur Olfa Terras, who is running for Bizerte in the north.

What about the presidential vote? 

Presidential elections scheduled for November were moved forward after the death of President Beji Caid Essebsi in July. This places the parliamentary election between the the first and second round of the presidentials.

Campaigning for the parliamentary polls has been overshadowed by the presidential race in which mogul Karoui advanced to the second round, despite being detained in a money-laundering probe.

He will face Kais Saied, a fiercely independent and socially conservative academic.

A strong performance by Qalb Tounes in the parliamentary election could boost Karoui’s chances in the presidential run-off.

For his part, Saied said he is opposed to the party system and offered no endorsements for the parliamentary election.

“There is no clear polarisation, which is accentuating the lack of enthusiasm,” said Michael Ayari, Tunisia analyst with the International Crisis Group.

Across the country, large numbers of billboards made available to candidates have remained blank.

Who will the winners be? 

Compared to 2014, when Ennahdha and Nidaa Tounes shared power, the outcome of these elections is unpredictable, especially after the upset in the first round of the presidential poll.

None of the candidates who have been at the forefront of the political scene in recent years advanced past the first round of that vote.

The publication of opinion polls is prohibited but according to informal surveys, independent lists could lead the parliamentary poll, ahead of Karoui’s Qalb Tounes and Ennahda.

Movements like Aich Tounsi and Karama, led by the populist Islamist lawyer Seifeddine Makhlouf, could follow.

The Free Destourian Party, led by the anti-Islamist lawyer Abir Moussi, will hope to improve on the 4 per cent she won in the first round of the presidential vote

What will it change? 

The assembly will be charged with forming a new government, which needs a majority of 109 votes.

According to Ayari, given the political fragmentation “it is possible that no majority will emerge” within the timeframe provided by the constitution.

The party with the most seats has two months to form a government. Otherwise the president can nominate a prime minister, who will in turn have two months.

To obtain a majority, the leading list will likely need to assemble four or five blocs. But this may prove challenging as “some of these have campaigned against each other”, said Lamine Benghazi from the political observatory Al Bawsala.

Too much political uncertainty would be detrimental to the revival of the economy — a promise made by candidates across the political spectrum as Tunisians struggle with rising prices, declining public services and unemployment of more than 15 per cent.