Pompadour & rooster cuts: Iraqi styles sculpt 'revolution'

Yahoo – AFP, Hervé Bar, December 28, 2019

Iraqi anti-government protesters are expressing their rebellion against the
existing social order via wild hairstyles (AFP Photo/SABAH ARAR)

Baghdad (AFP) - Elvis Presley may have been the advance guard, but young Iraqis own it -- protesters in Baghdad sport slicked styles and rockabilly haircuts, a testament to their unyielding rebel spirit.

"The revolution has changed everything," said Qassem, nearly three months into a popular movement that seeks to unseat Iraq's highly dysfunctional political establishment.

"Now, it is all so different -- we are free," the young protester added under a tent where he doles out tea and biscuits to peers in Tahrir Square.

"We also know how to let loose," Qassem continued, his face switching suddenly from serious to smiling.

"And so I invented a new style," he chuckled, glancing upwards towards his rectangular pompadour.

Outside his tent, thousands of students and young unemployed people thronged the iconic square, railing once more against "crooked" politicians.

Their enthusiasm has remained undimmed since the start of the revolt on October 1, despite clashes with security forces that have killed close to 460.

One thing strikes the eye perhaps above all else -- the unbridled hairstyles young men sport.

High quiffs, tight fades and loads of attitude -- it is quite the male beauty pageant.

Unorthodox hairstyles can be dangerous in Iraq, where in 2012 at least 15 young 

men were murdered for sporting the "emo" look (AFP Photo/SABAH ARAR)

'Why be scared?'

Exclusively male and in large part inspired by the fashionable cuts of football stars, the phenomenon is coursing through the Arab world.

And it is particularly exuberant in Tahrir Square.

"Here, we call it the rooster comb," explained a local journalist.

For 23-year-old actor and renowned activist Omar Dabbour, "the style began two years ago".

Then "it exploded with the revolution in Tahrir. The people feel increasingly free," he noted.

Dabbour himself sports an impressive, albeit more natural, style -- an afro worthy of the Jackson Five, which amounts to a radical departure, in what is otherwise an ocean of hair gel.

"In Tahrir Square, young people are daring -- it has become normal," added Dabbour.

"But in the rest of the city, it's a bit different -- more conservative. There is the army, the militiamen who can bother you at checkpoints," he continued.

"I don't care. Before, I had a short haircut. Now I have let it grow. Why be scared?"

Sporting yellow tinted glasses and maintaining a studious air, Karrar Riad, 20, pushed a hand through his long and deliberately disordered locks.

With a black leather bracelet, he has the air of a young Johnny Depp. "Today, everything is possible. We do what we want here," he said.

Here perhaps, but not in Riad's home district of Kadhimiya, which houses a key Shiite mausoleum.

Going home requires him to restore some conventional order to his unruly mop.

Other fashionistos don a cap to blend back in when they depart the protest hotbed.

Their caution is not without reason.

In 2012, at least 15 youths were stoned, beaten or shot to death in a spate of targeted attacks against people sporting the "emo" look -- tight-fitting black clothes and alternative hairstyles.

As new hairstyles are shared on social media in Iraq, the trend is towards ever more 

elaborate looks (AFP Photo/SABAH ARAR)

Voluminous proliferation

The range of styles is wide, but it is Iraq's take on the Elvis cut that rises head and shoulders above the rest: a towering pompadour with undercut back and sides.

"Adopted by celebrities, students and hipsters," the pompadour -- named after a mistress of French King Louis XV -- will transform you into a "sexy and trendy man", according to one website.

But this style itself unfurls into a multitude of sub-styles in Iraq, from classic rockabilly to even the mohawk.

And amid the proliferation of looks, cuts are becoming ever more voluminous.

"The idea is to do what you want to do," said Dabbour.

And probably also to attract the throngs of young women who frequent Tahrir Square, in a commingling that is unusual in Iraq.

The hair styles on display have "roots in the 1990s, in the hairdressing salons and male beauty parlours of Sadr City," explained Zahraa Ghandour, an Iraqi documentary film maker.

Sadr City -- a huge working-class district of northeastern Baghdad -- was marginalised under the regime of deposed dictator Saddam Hussein.

"The residents wanted to mark themselves out. It was a means to express themselves, to protest," said Ghandour.

Baroque haircuts, meanwhile, "really started around two years ago, again in Sadr city."

Zouheir-al-Atouani, a local videographer who has gained nationwide fame, spread this style by posting wedding videos in which men sport ever more sculpted looks.

According to Ghandour, "in Tahrir, ever more frequented by young people from Sadr city, it's a way to rebel, to free oneself".

It is also most likely a way of defying the country's all-powerful militias, and social revenge for young people who feel despised, yet now find themselves at the forefront of fashion.

"They are especially creative," smiles Ghandour.

And the styles are "spread far and wide by social networks", where dandies love to showcase their ever crazier cuts.

Iraq's embattled PM bows out as protesters mourn dead

Yahoo – AFP, December 1, 2019

After a spike in deaths last week, Prime Minister Adel Abdel Mahdi said on
Friday he would submit his resignation to parliament (AFP Photo/AHMAD AL-RUBAYE)

Baghdad (AFP) - The government of Iraq's Prime Minister Adel Abdel Mahdi ended Sunday after two months of violent unrest that has left more than 420 people dead and thousands mourning them in nationwide marches.

As anti-government demonstrators across the strife-torn country massed to honour the fallen activists, parliament met to accept the resignation which the 77-year-old had offered two days before.

While Abdel Mahdi stays on initially to lead a caretaker government, President Barham Saleh will now be asked to name a successor to face the challenge of resolving the political chaos that has engulfed the nation.

The protest movement is Iraq's biggest since the US-led invasion of 2003 toppled Saddam Hussein and installed a democratic system in the oil-rich but poverty-plagued nation.

Tens of thousands have vented their anger at a governing class they despise as inept, corrupt and beholden to foreign powers, especially neighbouring Iran, whose consulate in the city of Najaf was torched last Wednesday.

The rallies spread Sunday from the protest epicentre in Baghdad and the mostly Shiite south to the northern, majority-Sunni city of Mosul, where hundreds of students dressed in black organised a mourning march.

Some protesters cautiously welcomed the departure of the premier, who came to power just a year ago based on a shaky alliance between rival parties, but they demanded far more deep-rooted change.

"Abdel Mahdi should go -- and so should parliament and the political parties and Iran!" said one young demonstrator in the capital.

Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdel Mahdi, whose resignation has been accepted by 

parliament after barely one year in office, will stay on in a caretaker capacity until a 

replacement has been named (AFP Photo/AHMAD AL-RUBAYE)

'Carnival goes on'

Observers said Iraq's fractured political scene will struggle to reach a consensus on a new premier.

With the parliament's main Shiite blocs "fragmented, no 'largest faction exists," wrote Dlawer Ala'Aldeen, president of the Arbil-based Middle East Research Institute.

Even if they agreed on a candidate, he or she would also need the backing of the emboldened street.

"Demonstrators are hard to please," said Ala'Aldeen. "The carnival goes on and, meanwhile, violence continues."

Just before the parliamentary session began, another protester was shot dead in the capital, medical sources said.

But, in a victory for the movement, an Iraqi court sentenced a police officer to death after convicting him of killing demonstrators, the first such sentence in the two months of deadly civil unrest.

The Kut criminal court sentenced the police major to be hanged and it jailed a police lieutenant colonel for seven years over the deaths of seven protesters in the southern city on November 2, judicial sources said.

In Mosul, meanwhile, protesters were marching in solidarity with activists elsewhere in the country.

"It's the least Mosul can give to the martyrs," said Zahraa Ahmed, a dentistry student.

"The protesters are asking for their basic rights so the government should have answered from the beginning."

Previously, most Sunni-majority areas had refrained from protesting, fearing that opposing the central government would earn them the labels of being "terrorists" or supporters of Saddam.

For three years, Mosul was the heart of the Islamic State group's ultra-conservative "caliphate", and much of it still lies in ruins today.

Another student in Mosul, Hussein Kheder, carrying an Iraqi flag, said the whole country was now in agreement politically and that "now the government needs to heed the protesters' demands".

Protesters have hit the streets since early October in the largest grassroots 

movement Iraq has seen in decades, sparked by fury at poor public services, 

lack of jobs and widespread government graft (AFP Photo/Haidar HAMDANI)

'Nobody objected'

Abdel Mahdi had resisted protesters' calls for him to step down over the past two months.

But a crackdown turned the tide this week when more than 20 people were killed in the Shiite shrine city of Najaf, 40 in the hotspot of Nasiriyah and three in Baghdad.

The bloodshed prompted Iraq's influential Shiite spiritual leader, Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, to call on parliament to drop its support for the premier.

Iraq's constitution has no provision for the resignation of a premier, and lawmaker Sarkawt Shamsaddin said Sunday that the body did not actually hold a vote.

"The speaker said that the Federal Court was consulted and the understanding is that (there is) no need to vote," he said.

The speaker had then asked if any lawmaker was against the resignation and "nobody objected".

Meanwhile, mourners also marched for the first time in Salaheddin, a Sunni-majority province north of Baghdad.

Eight Shiite-majority provinces also announced a day of mourning during which government offices would remain shut.

Clashes have continued in Najaf, where armed men in civilian clothes have fired on protesters who had torched part of a shrine where a revered religious figure is buried.

Local tribes, still tremendously influential in Iraq's south, tried to mediate a solution.

Meanwhile calm reigned in Nasiriyah, the birthplace of Abdel Mahdi.

Six protesters killed in south Iraq as unrest intensifies

Yahoo – AFP, Bassem al-Rikaby, November 24, 2019

In the oil-rich southern city of Basra, demonstrators blocked main roads from
dawn (AFP Photo/Hussein FALEH)

Nasiriyah (Iraq) (AFP) - Six protesters were killed Sunday in Iraq's south where angry demonstrations turned up the heat on a paralysed government facing the country's largest grassroots movement in decades.

Three demonstrators died and around 50 were wounded in clashes with security forces near the key southern port of Umm Qasr, the Iraqi Human Rights Commission reported.

An AFP correspondent said security forces had fired live rounds at protesters trying to block access to the port, a vital lifeline for food and medicine imports as well as energy exports.

Hours earlier, before dawn, three protesters were shot dead and at least 47 wounded by security forces in Nasiriyah, some 300 kilometres (200 miles) south of the capital Baghdad, medical sources said.

Protesters there blockaded five main bridges over the Euphrates River, shut down schools and burned tyres outside public offices.

They blocked access to oil fields and companies around the city, torching as well its Shiite endowment centre, a government body that manages religious sites.

Iraqi protesters are angered by rampant government corruption, poor services 

and lack of jobs (AFP Photo/SABAH ARAR)

Since October 1, Iraq's capital and majority-Shiite south have been swept by mass rallies against corruption, a lack of jobs and poor services that have escalated into calls for a complete overhaul of the ruling elite.

Top leaders have publicly acknowledged the demands as legitimate and promised measures to appease protesters, including hiring more civil servants, reforming the electoral system and reshuffling the cabinet.

But the rallies have continued, waning on some days but swelling again, despite the bloodshed, when demonstrators have felt politicians are stalling.

"We are not afraid of threats," said one protester, Salem Hassan, in the southern city of Amara.

"We cannot remain silent in the face of the barbarism of the leaders and the time they take to satisfy our demands."

Live rounds fired

An estimated 350 people have been killed and thousands wounded since October 1, according to a tally compiled by AFP as authorities no longer provide updated figures.

Activists called for a general strike in Basra, where demonstrators burned 

tyres to cut off roads (AFP Photo/Hussein FALEH)

Iraq's south, a rural area where tribal allegiances are strong, has carried the torch of the movement for weeks, with students and teachers leading rallies outside schools and public offices.

The education ministry issued a directive for schools to open normally on Sunday, the first day of the work week in Iraq, but protesters in Nasiriyah defied the order and shut down schools anyway, AFP's correspondent said.

In the oil-rich southern city of Basra, demonstrators blocked main roads, including those leading to the ports of Umm Qasr and Khor al-Zubair.

Clashes also pitted protesters against security forces overnight in Karbala, one of Iraq's two Shiite holy cities.

The two sides lobbed Molotov cocktails at each other from behind barricades set up in small alleyways.

"They're throwing Molotov cocktails at us and at midnight they started shooting live rounds," one demonstrator said about the security forces.

In the night-time clashes, the streets were lit only by fires from the makeshift incendiary weapons, and by green laser pointers used by demonstrators to harass riot police.

Iraqi anti-government protesters gathered near the Al-Ahrar bridge in Baghdad, 

where three protesters were killed and dozens wounded in clashes with security 

forces on Saturday (AFP Photo/SABAH ARAR)

"Our demands are clear," said a demonstrator, his face wrapped in a black scarf.

"The downfall of this corrupt government."

Budget talks

Iraq is the 12th most corrupt country in the world, says Transparency International, a key driver of the popular anger behind the mass protests.

The activists accuse elites of awarding public sector jobs based on bribes, nepotism or sectarianism, while ignoring a painful youth unemployment rate of 25 percent.

Iraq's cabinet is currently discussing the 2020 budget before it is submitted to parliament and government sources say it is expected to be one of the country's largest yet.

Sunday's violence came a day after the surprise visit of US Vice President Mike Pence to Iraq, where he dropped in on American troops stationed in the country's west and met top leaders in the Kurdish region in the north.

He did not, however, meet officials in Baghdad, with officials citing "security reasons".

Washington and Baghdad have been close allies since the US-led 2003 invasion that toppled ex-dictator Saddam Hussein, but ties are now at their coldest in years, officials from both countries have told AFP.

'Sister protests': Lebanon, Iraq look to each other

Yahoo – AFP, Hashem Osseiran in Beirut and Maya Gebeily in Baghdad, 11 November 2019

A Baghdad street vendor sells flags of Iraq and Lebanon, both gripped by
anti-government protests

A Lebanese flag flutters in the protest-hit Iraqi capital. More than 900 kilometres (500 miles) away, a revolutionary Iraqi chant rings out from a bustling protest square in Beirut.

"Don't trust the rumours, they're a group of thieves," sings a group of Lebanese musicians in Iraqi dialect, referring to political leaders they deem incompetent and corrupt.

"The identity is Lebanese," they continue, reworking the chant by Iraqi preacher Ali Yusef al-Karbalai, made popular during the street movement there.

Such recent shows of solidarity have become a common feature of protest squares in the two countries, where corruption, unemployment and appalling public services have fuelled unprecedented street movements demanding the ouster of an entire political class.

They serve to "shed light on similarities between the two movements and boost morale", said Farah Qadour, a Lebanese oud musician.

"The two streets are observing and learning from each other," said the 26-year-old who is part of the group that adopted al-Karbalai's chant.

In Lebanon's southern city of Nabatiyeh, hundreds brandishing Lebanese flags chanted: "From Iraq to Beirut, one revolution that never dies."

And in the northern city of Tripoli, dubbed the "bride" of Lebanon's protest movement, a man standing on a podium waved a wooden pole bearing the flags of the two countries.

"From Lebanon to Iraq, our pain is one, our right is one, and victory is near," read a sign raised during another protest, outside Beirut's state-run electricity company.

'We're with you'

In Tahrir Square, the beating heart of Baghdad's month-old protest movement, demonstrators are selling Lebanese flags alongside Iraqi ones.

They have hung some on the abandoned Turkish restaurant, turned by Iraqi demonstrators into a protest control tower.

Banners reading "from Beirut to Baghdad, one revolution against the corrupt" could be seen throughout.

Lebanon and Iraq are ranked amongst the most corrupt countries in the region by anti-graft watchdog Transparency International, with Iraq listed as the 12th most corrupt in the world.

Public debt levels in both countries are relatively high, with the rate in Lebanon exceeding 150 percent of gross domestic product (GDP).

"What's happening on the streets in Iraq and Lebanon, they're sister protests," said Samah, a 28-year-old Lebanese demonstrator.

Iraqi protesters stand under a banner reading "From Karbala to Beirut, one 

goal, one trench"

"They're the result of an accumulation" of years of problems.

One video that went viral on social media networks showed a masked Iraqi protester dressed in military fatigues demanding the resignation of Lebanese Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil, one of the main targets of protesters in the small Mediterranean country.

In a video released online, a group of young Iraqi men had filmed themselves singing, "Lebanon, we're with you!"

The two movements also seem to be adopting similar protest strategies.

In both countries, rows of parked vehicles have blocked traffic along main thoroughfares in recent weeks.

University-aged demonstrators wearing medical masks or eye goggles have occupied bridges and flyovers, refusing to believe pledges of reform from both governments.

'The goal is one'

The big difference is that in Iraq, the demonstrations have turned deadly, with more than 300 people, mostly protesters but also including security forces, killed since the movement started October 1.

Lebanon's street movement, which started on October 17, has been largely incident-free despite scuffles with security forces and counter-demonstrators rallying in support of established parties.

The two movements, however, are united in their anger about the kind of political system that prioritises power-sharing between sects over good governance.

The consecutive governments born out of this system have been prone to deadlock and have failed to meet popular demands for better living conditions.

"We are united by a sense of patriotic duty in confronting this sectarian political system," said Obeida, a 29-year-old protester from Tripoli.

He said he had high hopes for Iraqi protesters because the sectarian power-sharing system there is relatively new, having emerged after the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003.

"In Lebanon, it's more entrenched," he said of the arrangement that ended the country's 1975-1990 civil war.

On a Beirut waterfront, dotted with luxury restaurants and cafes, a 70-year-old Iraqi man who has been living in Lebanon for five years looked on as demonstrators laid out picnic blankets on the grass.

With a Lebanese flag wrapped around his neck, Fawzi said the protests looked different but reminded him of those back home.

"The goal is one," he said.

Iraq protests ramp up, shutting roads, offices and schools

Yahoo – AFP, November 3, 2019

Demonstrations broke out in Baghdad on October 1 in outrage at unemployment,
poor public services and corruption, quickly spreading to the Shiite-majority
south (AFP Photo/Mohammed SAWAF)

Baghdad (AFP) - Protesters in Iraq's capital and the country's south shut down streets and government offices in a new wave of civil disobedience Sunday, escalating their month-long movement demanding wholesale change of the political system.

Demonstrations broke out on October 1 in outrage over rampant corruption and unemployment in Iraq. They were met with a violent crackdown that left dozens dead.

Since resuming late last month, the protests have swelled again with the support of students and trade unions, who jointly announced a campaign of non-violent resistance on Sunday.

In Baghdad, university-age demonstrators parked cars along main thoroughfares to block traffic on the first day of the working week in the Muslim-majority country, as police officers looked on.

Other students took part in sit-ins at their schools, and the national teachers union extended a strike they began last week. The engineering, doctors and lawyers syndicates have all backed the protests.

"We decided to cut the roads as a message to the government that we will keep protesting until the corrupt people and thieves are kicked out and the regime falls," said Tahseen Nasser, a 25-year-old protester in the eastern city of Kut.

In the southern city of Diwaniyah, a banner hanging on the headquarters of the provincial council proclaimed: "Closed by order of the people".

The government has proposed a string of reforms, but they have had little effect
on those in the streets, who have condemned the political class wholesale
(AFP Photo/AHMAD AL-RUBAYE)

'Government lies'

The government has proposed a string of reforms, including a hiring drive, social welfare plans and early elections once a new voting law is passed.

But protesters have stayed on the streets, condemning the political class wholesale.

"We decided on this campaign of civil disobedience because we have had it up to here with the government's lies and promises of so-called reform," said Mohammad al-Assadi, a government employee on strike in the southern city of Nasiriyah.

Demonstrators there organised sit-ins on bridges leading out of the city, as well as its main streets and squares.

Schools and government offices were closed in Baghdad and half a dozen other cities in the south.

In the oil-rich port city Basra, public schools were shut for the first time since the movement erupted in October.

Protesters also kept closed the highway to the Qasr port, one of the main conduits for food, medicine and other imports into Iraq.

A source at the port told AFP that around a dozen ships had pulled away to take their goods elsewhere on Saturday, after waiting to unload their cargo.

The spreading sit-ins indicate a new phase in the protests, already hailed as the largest grassroots movement in Iraq in decades.

The protests have swelled with the support of students 

and trade unions, who jointly announced a campaign 

of civil disobedience (AFP Photo/Haidar HAMDANI)

Civil society 'recovers'

Under ex-dictator Saddam Hussein, rallies that were not exuberantly supporting him or his Baathist government were banned.

After he was toppled by the US-led invasion of 2003, political parties tussling for influence were the only actors able to draw large numbers out into the streets.

"Iraq's civil society which was undermined by decades of Baathist authoritarianism and sectarianism is recovering," wrote Harith Hasan, a scholar at the Carnegie Endowment's Middle East Center.

But the movement has also been bloodied by the deaths of more than 250 people, the vast majority of them protesters.

On Saturday, medical sources told AFP at least one person was killed and dozens wounded in clashes with security forces near the capital's Tahrir Square, a focal point for demonstrators.

Young protesters have spilt over from Tahrir onto two main bridges leading to the western bank of the Tigris.

They parked cars across roads on Sunday, while large numbers of students and schoolchildren thronged towards the square, AFP journalists said.

Alaa Wissam, a 25-year-old architect, said young people were heading to the square to volunteer their help.

"This thing will help young people to have a role in the change that is happening," she said.

Riot police deployed along the bridges have fired tear gas to keep back protesters, who have dug in to their positions behind their own barricades.

Amnesty International slammed Iraqi forces days ago for using two types of military-grade tear gas canisters that have pierced protesters' skulls and lungs.

Rights groups have also expressed worry over the detention of protesters, journalists and medics.

On Sunday, the Iraqi Human Rights Commission said Saba Mahdawi, a doctor and activist, had been abducted the previous evening after providing medical aid to protesters.

Mahdawi's mother said she had been abducted by "armed, masked men on pick-up trucks" as she headed home from Tahrir late on Saturday evening.

The Commission did not say who may have seized her but urged security forces to investigate the matter and other "organised kidnapping operations" in recent weeks.

It called Mahdawi's abduction "a mark of shame for the whole of Iraqi society".

Later, the interior ministry announced the release of a second demonstrator, seized two days earlier, without providing a name.

Iraq protests enter second month, defying pledges of reform

Yahoo – AFP, Sarah Benhaida, November 1, 2019

Iraqi protesters gather at Tahrir Square for anti-government demonstrations
in the capital Baghdad (AFP Photo/SABAH ARAR)

Baghdad (AFP) - Iraq's top cleric warned foreign actors on Friday against interfering in his country's anti-government protests as they entered a second month despite pledges of reform and violence that has left over 250 dead.

The demonstrations have evolved since October 1 from rage over corruption and unemployment to demands for a total government overhaul -- shunning both politicians and religious figures along the way.

They have even condemned the influence of the Hashed al-Shaabi paramilitary factions, who have descended into the streets of the capital and elsewhere to flex their muscles.

In his weekly sermon, top Shiite religious authority Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani said Iraq must not be dragged "into the "abyss of infighting".

"No person or group, no side with a particular view, no regional or international actor may seize the will of the Iraqi people and impose its will on them," he said.

Sistani's remarks, which can usually make or break a government decision in Iraq, came a day after comments by Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

"I seize this opportunity to tell those who care about Iraq and Lebanon to remedy insecurity as their priority," Khamenei said, without elaborating.

Iraq has close but complicated ties with both Iran, its large eastern neighbour, and the United States, which opposes Tehran's influence in the region.

On Friday, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo urged the Iraqi government to "listen to the legitimate demands made by the Iraqi people," saying an official probe last month into suppression of the protests "lacked sufficient credibility".

Fresh clashes

More than 250 people have died and 10,000 have been wounded in the past month as protests evolved into calls for the "downfall of the regime".

The movement is unique in Iraqi history because of its condemnation of the political and religious class wholesale.

A Shiite Muslim pilgrim walks in front of posters of Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah 

Ali Khamenei (R) and the spiritual leader of Iraq's Shiite community, Grand 

Ayatollah Ali Sistani (AFP Photo/Haidar HAMDANI)

"No one represents the people, not Iran, not the parties, not the clerics. We want to take back our country," said Ali Ghazi, 55, protesting in Baghdad on Thursday.

"You're all thieves. From 2003 until now, what have you done?" he said, referring to the year a US-led invasion toppled dictator Saddam Hussein.

Since then, Iraq's political system has been gripped by clientelism, corruption and sectarianism.

One in five Iraqis live below the poverty line and youth unemployment stands at 25 percent, despite the vast oil wealth of OPEC's second-largest crude producer.

That inequality has been a rallying cry for protesters, who have occupied the capital's Tahrir Square and spilt onto adjacent bridges.

As night fell on Friday, skirmishes broke out between protesters and riot police deployed along the Al-Sinek bridge, leaving several apparently severely wounded, an AFP photographer there said.

Riot police fired tear gas to keep protesters back, a day after Amnesty International slammed Iraqi forces for using the military-grade gas canisters in an "unprecedented" way.

Amnesty said they were being shot directly at protesters, piercing their heads and chests.

The violence in response to the protests has made them Iraq's deadliest grassroots movement for decades, with 157 dying in the first week-long outburst and another 100 losing their lives in the past week.

Parliament 'useless'

They have persisted despite a string of government proposals including hiring drives and social welfare plans.

Protesters are demanding nothing short of "the fall of the regime."

Map of central Baghdad in Iraq. (AFP Photo/Jonathan WALTER)

On Thursday night, President Barham Saleh vowed to hold early elections once a new voting law and electoral commission have been agreed.

He also said embattled Prime Minister Adel Abdel Mahdi was ready to step down once another candidate was found.

Abdel Mahdi, 77, came to power a year ago through a tenuous partnership between populist cleric Moqtada Sadr and paramilitary leader Hadi al-Ameri.

The kingmakers' alliance has frayed in recent months, as Sadr threw his weight behind the protests while Ameri and his allies backed the government.

A rapprochement built on Abdel Mahdi's ouster appeared close this week, but disagreements over a replacement and pressure by Iran seem to have caused a stalemate among parliamentary blocs.

Parliament has been meeting every day to pressure Abdel Mahdi to come in for questioning, but he has so far resisted.

Ameri hinted at the paralysis on Friday, saying Iraq's "parliamentary system has failed and is useless" and called for "fundamental constitutional amendments."

An Iraqi government official said that following Khamenei's comments, "Ameri did a total 180" degree turn.

Fanar Haddad, an expert at Singapore University's Middle East Institute, said the political class appeared not to see that the protests presented "the most serious challenge to the post-2003 order".

"Promises of new election laws, or the formation of constitutional reform committees and so forth fall on deaf ears," he told AFP.

"They are seen as smokescreens with which the political classes are trying to save themselves and preserve their privileges," Fanar added.