19 December 2017•Update: 19 December 2017
By Idris Okuducu
SULAYMANIYAH, Iraq
Several public facilities, including the offices of opposition groups including the Iraqi Turkmen Front (ITF), were torched by protesters on Tuesday in the city of Sulaymaniyah in northern Iraq’s Kurdish region.
Aydin Maruf, an ITF lawmaker for Erbil, told Anadolu Agency that demonstrators had set fire to the ITF’s office in the city’s Kifri district.
Since Monday, Sulaymaniyah has been the scene of large demonstrations by civil servants to protest public-sector salary delays and perceived government corruption.
According to Maruf, protesters also torched the local headquarters of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) in Sulaymaniyah, as well as the Koy Sanjaq prefecture building near Erbil, municipal capital of the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG).
Umid Ali, head of emergency services in Sulaymaniyah, said at least 10 protesters had been hospitalized after clashing with local security forces.
Shorash Ismail, the police chief in Koy Sanjaq, told Anadolu Agency that at least 15 people had been injured -- two seriously -- in clashes between security forces and protesters in the prefecture.
Local authorities have reportedly stepped up security throughout the region with a view to preventing further escalations.
On Monday, thousands of local civil servants staged demonstrations in Sulaymaniyah to demand delayed salaries and decry local government corruption.
Sulaymaniyah is considered a bastion of the Kurdish region’s leading opposition parties, including the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) and the Gorran Movement (Movement for Change).
In a related development on Tuesday, the KRG issued a warrant for the arrest of Shaswar Abdelwahid Qadir, leader of the “New Generation” movement, which had spearheaded a popular campaign against the KRG’s illegitimate Sept. 25 poll on regional independence.
Qadir has been accused by KRG authorities of inciting demonstrators to attack public facilities “with a view to overthrowing the government”.
