BAGHDAD -At least 19 people were killed in Iraq on Friday as tens of thousands defied an official curfew to join a nationwide "Day of Rage," echoing protests that have roiled the Middle East and North Africa since January.
Despite pleas by the government and Shiite religious leaders for Iraqis to stay home, demonstrators gathered by the hundreds and thousands from Basra in the south to Mosul and Kirkuk in the north.
Protesters expressed anger and rage at local leaders as well as at Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, storming provincial government offices in several cities and calling for more jobs, electricity and clean water, better pensions, and medical care.
Security forces used tear gas, water cannons, sound bombs and at times live bullets to disperse the crowds. Fatalities were reported in Mosul, Fallujah, Tikrit and a town near Kirkuk, when security forces opened fire on demonstrators who were surrounding - or in some cases storming - government buildings. There were also clashes in Ramadi.
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In the southern province of Basra, about 10,000 demonstrators forced the resignation of the provincial governor. In Fallujah, protesters forced the resignation of the entire city council.
In Baghdad, where Maliki imposed a curfew that banned cars and even bicycles from the streets, people walked, often many miles, to reach the city's Tahrir Square. Several thousand had gathered by early afternoon.
Surrounded by hundreds of police, soldiers and rooftop snipers, with military helicopters buzzing overhead, protesters waved Iraqi flags and signs reading "Bring the Light Back" (a reference to the lack of electricity), "No to Corruption!" and "I'm a Peaceful Man."
Protesters circled the square and then surged down a road toward the bridge leading to Maliki's offices, where a row of giant concrete blast walls had been erected overnight to block them. At one point, protesters began pushing against the walls, managing to open a crevice and push through. Witnesses said a soldier shot one protester in the stomach, and people began to hurl rocks over the wall after that.
Though demonstrators mostly called for reform and an end to corruption, there were calls here and there for Maliki to step down.
Protest organizers had hoped Friday's demonstrations would inject a fresh concept into the exercise of Iraq's fledgling democracy: peaceful expression of discontent. They insisted their goal was to demand a better government, not a new one.
In other developments across the region:
• Security forces in Yemen opened fire on thousands of demonstrators in the southern port city of Aden, wounding at least 19 people, in the latest confrontation with crowds pressing for the U.S.-backed president's ouster.
Tens of thousands of protesters march in different parts of the country. President Ali Abdullah Saleh has promised to step down after national elections in 2013, but the demonstrators want him out now.
• In Egypt, tens of thousands jammed Cairo's main square. They were trying to keep up pressure on Egypt's military rulers to carry out reforms and called for the dismissal of holdovers from the regime of ousted President Hosni Mubarak.
Demonstrators said they are worried the army is not moving quickly enough on reforms, including repealing emergency laws and releasing political prisoners.
• In Bahrain, tens of thousands filled the central square of Bahrain's capital, Manama. Protesters have taken to the streets every day for the past two weeks, asking for sweeping political concessions from the ruling monarch. Security forces made no attempt to halt the marches.
Bahrain is the first Gulf state to be thrown into turmoil by the Arab world's wave of change. The unrest is highly significant for Washington because Bahrain sits at the center of its military framework in the region.
• In Jordan, about 4,000 protesters rallied in the capital, Amman, the largest crowd yet in two months of unrest. The leader of Jordan's largest opposition group warned that patience is running out with what he called the government's slow steps toward reform.
King Abdullah II, a key U.S. ally in the Middle East, has so far failed to quiet the calls for sweeping political change. The protesters want a bigger say in politics and for the prime minister to be chosen through elections, not by the king.
