LEBANON – Since the beginning of Israel’s attack on Lebanon, and especially the Friday killing of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in Beirut, the mood in Iraq has been one of anger and mourning. 30-year-old Imad Qusay Abbas, from the Nineveh Plain to the north-east of Mosul in northern Iraq, said he received the news of Nasrallah’s killing on his return from a solidarity vigil for the victims of Israeli aggression across the region organized by the Iran-backed Iraqi armed group, Kata’ib Sayyid al-Shuhada KSS

We never imagined that we would return from the solidarity vigil and hear the news of the martyrdom of Nasrallah,” he told Al Jazeera. “He was martyred as we were carrying his pictures and chanting for Lebanon and Palestine. It was a real shock. After Hezbollah confirmed the killing of Nasrallah, hundreds of Iraqis once again took to the streets across many provinces, from Basra and Karbala to Baghdad and Mosul, to mourn him and stand in solidarity with millions of others suffering from Israeli attacks in Lebanon, Gaza and across the region.

In the capital, Baghdad, on Saturday protesters tried enter the Green Zone [a district in central Baghdad, which is the seat of the Iraqi government] and set the US embassy there on fire as they chanted slogans declaring the assassination of Nasrallah in Beirut represents a complete breakdown of the international order.

Iraq’s Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani condemned the attack as shameful” and “a crime that shows the Zionist entity has crossed all the red lines In a statement, Sudani called Nasrallah “a martyr on the path of the righteous and declared a three-day mourning period. Sudani’s statement came shortly after influential Iraqi Shia Muslim leader Muqtada al-Sadr wrote on X Farewell to the companion of the path of resistance and defiance. Later, KSS Secretary-General Abu Alaa Al-Walae said, also in a post on X, that Iraq, with its government, people and resistance, did not and will not allow the imposition of a siege on proud Lebanon    (Al Jazeera)…[+]