Hundreds storm Swedish embassy in Iraq and set fire to building in protest of plans to burn another Quran in Stockholm

Hundreds of protesters stormed the Swedish embassy in central Baghdad in the early hours of Thursday morning, scaled the walls and set fire to them in protest of Sweden’s planned burning of a copy of the Koran.

Footage shows protesters waving flags and placards featuring the influential Iraqi Shia cleric Muqtada Sadr before climbing over the fence and entering the embassy to set it on fire.

Swedish Foreign Minister Tobias Billstrom on Thursday condemned the storming of the embassy as “totally unacceptable,” adding that all personnel in Baghdad were safe. “It is clear that the Iraqi authorities have seriously failed in their responsibility to protect diplomatic missions and personnel,” said an irate Billstrom.

The demonstration was organized by supporters of political leader Sadr to protest the second planned burning of the Quran in weeks in Stockholm, Sweden.

Sadr, one of Iraq’s most powerful figures, commands hundreds of thousands of followers whom he has at times called onto the streets, including last summer when they occupied Baghdad’s heavily fortified Green Zone and engaged in deadly confrontations.

Swedish police on Wednesday approved a request for a public meeting outside the Iraqi embassy in Stockholm on Thursday, the police permit showed. Police said in the permit that two people would participate.

The two people planned to burn the Quran and the Iraqi flag during the public gathering, including a man who set fire to a Quran outside a mosque in Stockholm in June, Sweden’s TT news agency reported.

Swedish police earlier this year rejected several requests for protests that would include the burning of the Quran, citing security concerns. Courts have since overturned the police’s decisions, saying such acts are protected by the country’s far-reaching freedom of speech laws.

A series of videos posted to the Telegram group, One Bagdad, showed people gathering around the Swedish embassy around 1am on Thursday (22:00 GMT on Wednesday), chanting pro-Sadr slogans and storming the embassy complex about an hour later.

“Yes, yes to the Quran,” protesters chanted.

Videos later showed smoke rising from a building in the embassy complex and protesters standing on the roof.

The Iraqi Foreign Ministry also condemned the incident, saying in a statement that the Iraqi government had ordered security forces to swiftly investigate, identify the perpetrators and hold them accountable.

According to Reuters witnesses, security forces had been deployed to the embassy at dawn on Thursday and smoke billowed from the building as firefighters extinguished stubborn embers.

Iraqi security forces later attacked several dozen protesters who were still loitering outside the embassy in an attempt to remove them from the area. Protesters had earlier briefly thrown stones and projectiles at the large number of assembled security forces.

Late last month, Sadr called for protests against Sweden and the expulsion of the Swedish ambassador after the Koran burning in Stockholm by an Iraqi man.

After the burning, the man was reported to the police for agitation against an ethnic or national group. In a newspaper interview, he described himself as an Iraqi refugee who wants to ban the Quran, the central religious text of Islam, which Muslims believe is a revelation from God.

Two large protests took place outside the Swedish embassy in Baghdad in the aftermath of that Quran burning, with protesters breaking through the embassy grounds on one occasion.

The governments of several Muslim countries, including Iraq, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, Jordan and Morocco protested the incident, with Iraq requesting the man’s extradition to face trial in the country.

The United States also condemned it, but added that Sweden’s issuance of the permit supported free speech and was not an endorsement of the action.