BAGHDAD - Government-sponsored demonstrators, including club-wielding men believed to be plainclothes security agents, attacked pro-democracy protesters in downtown Tahrir Square on Friday and paraded incendiary pictures of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's chief rival with a giant red "X" slashed across his face.
Groups of rowdy young men, some said by Western sources to have been bused in by al-Maliki's Dawa Party, roamed the streets armed with sticks and other weapons. At least four men were badly beaten and several women were assaulted, according to pro-democracy activists who have held weekly Friday rallies at the square since February, inspired by the populist movements that first swept Tunisia and Egypt.
The violence, which echoed street attacks in the years leading to the creation of Saddam Hussein's authoritarian state, bodes ill for Iraq's emergent democracy, which President Obama recently described as a success story. Attacks on peaceful protesters also raise questions on how much freedom of expression will be tolerated by the al-Maliki government when remaining U.S. forces leave Iraq.
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The incident also came as state television aired confessions of alleged killers in a sectarian murder during the height of the nation's 2006 civil warfare. Seventy Shiite Muslims were killed when an armed Sunni group stormed a wedding party.
One of the confessions, which some believe was coerced, was accompanied by graphic images of the victims. The pro-government rally-goers, estimated at 1,000, were demanding the execution of the killers.
It didn't take long for them to turn on the pro-democracy activists. At least one group of men assaulted 10 female protesters, allegedly groping and clubbing them, and others were beaten before they fled. The attackers had weapons including steel pipes, knives and guns, according to the pro-democracy activists.
After the activists had been chased from the square, two government ministers and a military spokesman from al-Maliki's coalition joined the pro-government rally-goers and did not mention the beatings or the inflammatory pictures of Ayad Allawi, al-Maliki's rival.
Allawi reacted later to the day's events: "Today the tyrants crossed all lines."
U.S. toll in Iraq
4,463
Deaths
32,100
Wounded
Latest identification
• Pfc. Matthew J. England, 22, of Gainesville, Mo.; was assigned to the 3rd Squadron, 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment, Fort Hood, Texas.
SOURCE: Department of Defense
