A shell crashed on Saturday morning in Iraq, near the home of Iraqi Shiite leader Moqtada Sadr, who is supporting anti-government protesters who were killed in Baghdad overnight.
Moqtada Sadr was in Iran at the time of the drone attack on his house in the holy city of Najaf in the south of the country, a source told the Shiite leader's office. According to Lucile Wassermann, a Baghdad correspondent for France 24, "an investigation is under way to find out who is responsible for this attack".
Why was the house of the influential leader, winner of the legislative elections in 2018, targeted? Politicians close to Moqtada Sadr said that "this attack could be seen as a response to Moqtada Sadr's support for the protesters," said Lucile Wasserman.
With no casualties and no claims, the attack comes a day after another day of violence in Baghdad, when gunmen opened fire on anti-government protesters at the Sinak bridge near Tahrir Square.
"The climate of tension is at its maximum level"
"Armed men landed on pick-ups and fired point-blank at a building held by protesters," said Lucile Wasserman, adding that "the climate of tension is at its peak today, in Iraq" . The Iraqi authorities count 25 dead and 130 wounded in the night from Friday to Saturday.
Shots were fired and the demonstrators could only turn to social networks to broadcast the images of chaos, sometimes live.
The protesters have dubbed this bloody night "the massacre of Senek" (named after the bridge near Tahrir where the violence took place), which sparked a national shock.
Shortly after the violence in Baghdad, "around 3am, a drone fired a mortar shell at Moqtada Sadr's house" in the holy Shiite city of Najaf, south of Baghdad, a source in the movement said. Sadrist.
While security forces, deployed around Tahrir Square, the epicenter of protests for more than two months, did not react Friday, members of the Moqtada Sadr movement have deployed to "protect" protesters.
An event in support of the victims
In response to the "Senek massacre", demonstrators flocked to Tahrir Square and the southern squares, which were won over by protest. Hundreds of new protesters flocked to Tahrir in the night, a protester told AFP.
"I arrived after the violence and there were tons of people," he says. "The police were there, but nobody searched me."
>> To read: Iraq: after the war, the revolt
Following the killings, the state assures that it can not identify or arrest the attackers in a country where the pro-Iran armed factions have been gaining influence and are now integrated into the security forces. Police sources, however, say they have collected information on the will of these factions to attack the protesters.
The night's attack marked a turning point in the first spontaneous protest movement in Iraq, already marked by 445 dead and 20,000 wounded. For two months, in Tahrir Square, thousands of Iraqis conspire the power, accused of incompetence and corruption, as well as his Iranian godfather.