Traffic ran as normal through the Iraqi capital and streets and main squares were otherwise quiet as the authorities lift Baghdad curfew, Iran News quotes what Reuters reported on Saturday.

Officials from Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi’s office met protest leaders from Baghdad and other provinces to discuss their demands, state television reported.

Abdul Mahdi and President Barham Salih said they would seek to meet the demands, state television also reported, but gave no details how exactly they would respond.

The country’s parliament speaker proposed on Friday improving public housing for the poor and job opportunities for young people, as well as holding those who had killed protesters to account.

Powerful Iraqi cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, who has a mass popular following and controls a large chunk of parliament, demanded on Friday that the government resign and snap elections be held. At least one other major parliamentary grouping allied itself with Sadr against the government.

Parliament was set to meet on Saturday to discuss protesters’ demands.

The prime minister said protesters’ calls to end corruption were “correct” but said the government must be helped to carry out its duties. Ministerial amendments must be approved by parliament.

Abdul Mahdi on Wednesday declared a curfew in Baghdad until further notice after at least seven people were killed and more than 400 were injured during two days of anti-government demonstrations.

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“If there are insufficient jobs, there must be some form of basic income. Yes, the foreign embassies — US, UK and the Netherlands– are deliberately stirring up trouble but that is always easy to do when people are economically insecure. Also all American, British and Israeli forces should be kicked out,” Rodney Shakespeare told Tasnim when asked about the reason behind recent sporadic unrest in Iraq that has led to several casualties.

Iraqi Prime Minister Adil Abdul-Mahdi on Thursday expressed regret that the ongoing protests have become violent, saying he is ready to meet with representatives of the protesters to discuss their demands.

Speaking on Thursday night, the Iraqi prime minister said certain elements have been able to derail the protests from their peaceful path.

The unrest comes as millions of pilgrims are preparing to travel to the Iraqi holy cities of Najaf and Karbala to attend Arbaeen, marking the fortieth day after the martyrdom of their third Imam, Hussein ibn Ali (AS).

US Shifting to Political Rather Than Military Divide-and-Conquer Strategy

Kevin Barret, an author and analyst from Madison, also told Tasnim that “as Iraq grows more stable and confident, and gets its finances and infrastructure rebuilt, it grows more and more potentially independent.”

He added that an “independent Iraq will inevitably lean towards or join the Axis of Resistance to imperialism and Zionism, for two reasons: First, the Shiite-majority population of Iraq has obvious affinities with other members of the Axis of Resistance; and second and most importantly, if Iraq wants to return to the path of using its resources to benefit its population, it will ultimately need to help eject parasitical outsiders from the region. And the only group of countries that is working toward that end, rather than cooperating with the invaders, occupiers, and plunderers, is the Axis of Resistance.”

“The US-led, Zionist-instigated war on Iraq was designed to cripple and destabilize that country. The invaders pretend to fight terrorism. They pretend to be working to stabilize the situation. But even as one side of the US-led Occupation helped the Iraqi government fight takfiri terrorists, the other side was sponsoring the terrorism. Today, they seem to be shifting to a political rather than military divide-and-conquer strategy, by sponsoring color revolution style protests designed by foreign embassies to keep Iraq unstable and unable to take its place as a genuinely independent country working towards full regional independence,” Barret said.

US, Other Western Spy Agencies Have Long History of Interfering in Domestic Affairs of Nations

Dennis Etler, political analyst and a former professor of anthropology based in California, said the US and other Western intelligence services have a “long history of interfering in the domestic affairs of nations” they wish to control by fomenting anti-government protests. They try to destabilize targeted countries in the hope of advancing their own agenda in regions where they wish to assert or maintain political influence”.

He further told Tasnim that Iran has recently pledged to further support Iraq’s reconstruction after the defeat of ISIS and the US and its allies want to disrupt these friendly relations and the recent riots can be seen as an attempt to sabotage Iraq’s attempts at reconstruction by help of foreign embassies.

“A failed Iraqi state serves the interests of US imperialism in its attempts to contain Iran’s influence in the region,” he said.

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“Respect the blood of Iraq through the resignation of the government and prepare for early elections overseen by international monitors,” a statement from his office said.

Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi called for calm as more than 190 people were wounded in the capital on Friday, but protesters scorned his promises of political reform.

Iraqi populist cleric Moqtada al-Sadr calls for government resignation, snap election with international monitors: statement

Sadr’s intervention appeared likely to encourage them to continue their uprising until the government backs down.

On the streets of Baghdad, police appeared to be targeting individual protesters. Reuters reporters saw one fall to the ground after being shot in the head. He was pronounced dead in hospital.

Elsewhere, a Reuters television crew saw a man critically wounded by a gunshot to the neck after snipers on rooftops opened fire at a crowd. Sporadic shooting could be heard in Baghdad protests into the late evening.

Police shot dead three people trying to storm the provincial government headquarters in the southern city of Diwaniya, police and medics said.

The violence is the worst since Iraq put down an insurgency by Islamic State two years ago. The protests arose in the south, heartland of the Shi’ite majority, but quickly spread, with no formal leadership.

Security and medical sources gave a death toll on Friday of 65 killed and 192 wounded across Iraq in three days, the vast majority of the deaths in the last 24 hours as the violence accelerated.

“It is sorrowful that there have been so many deaths, casualties and destruction,” Iraq’s most influential cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, said in a letter read out by his representative during a sermon.

“The government and political sides have not answered the demands of the people to fight corruption or achieved anything on the ground,” said Sistani, who stays out of day-to-day politics but whose word is law for Iraq’s Shi’ites. “Parliament holds the biggest responsibility for what is happening.”

Sadr, who leads the largest opposition bloc in parliament, ordered his lawmakers to suspend participation in the legislature until the government introduces a program that would serve all Iraqis.

The speaker of Iraq’s parliament called the protests a “revolution” against corruption but urged calm and proposed reforms such as better state housing support for poor people and ensuring Iraqi graduates are included on lucrative foreign projects for energy sector development.

Many government officials and lawmakers are widely accused of siphoning off public money, unfairly awarding contracts in state institutions and other forms of corruption.

The violence is an unprecedented test for Adel Abdul Mahdi, a mild-mannered veteran politician who came to power last year as a compromise candidate backed by powerful Shi’ite groups that have dominated Iraq since the downfall of Saddam Hussein in 2003.

In his overnight address, Abdul Mahdi pledged reforms but said there was no “magic solution” to Iraq’s problems. He insisted politicians were aware of the suffering of the masses: “We do not live in ivory towers – we walk among you in the streets of Baghdad,” he said.

A young man in a crowd fleeing sniper shots at a central Baghdad square was scornful. “The promises by Adel Abdul Mahdi are to fool the people, and today they are firing live gunshots at us,” he said.

“Today this was a peaceful protest. They set up these barricades, and the sniper is sitting right there since last night.”

Police and medical sources told Reuters the death toll so far included 18 people killed in the southern city of Nassiriya, 16 in Baghdad protests, four in the southern city of Amara and four in Baquba as unrest spread north of the capital. Deaths were also reported in the southern cities of Hilla and Najaf.

Curfews were imposed in a number of cities. Authorities shut roads into the capital from the north and northeast and were sending reinforcements to Baghdad’s densely populated east. Military convoys were being sent to Nassiriya.

Abdul Mahdi said late on Friday that a curfew in Baghdad would be lifted from 5 a.m. local time on Saturday.

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