Up to a million followers of Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr took to the streets today in a show of force before an Arab League summit in Iraq later this month
The long-oppressed Shia majority in Iraq view the summit as their debut on the regional stage.
The protest in the southern city of Basra marked the anniversary of the start of the US invasion in 2003. Slogans were mainly directed at the government of prime minister Nuri al-Maliki for failing to improve the lives of Iraq's poor.
But the main context appears to be the Arab League summit at the end of this month. It will be the first in Iraq in more than 20 years and the first ever hosted by a mainstream Shia Arab ruler.
Basra police estimated the size of the crowd at between 700,000 and 1 million.
Sadr's followers frequently hold demonstrations denouncing Sunni rulers of other Arab states, especially Bahrain and its ally Saudi Arabia, for cracking down on Shia protesters last year. The last demonstration on March 9th saw Saudi flags burned.
Today's demonstration, by contrast, seemed to show a deliberate effort to avoid antagonising Arab neighbours by channelling protesters' anger into domestic grievances.
There is no shortage of such outrage in a country where oil wealth has yet to alleviate dire poverty. Nine years after the invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein - a Sunni who oppressed Shias - most Iraqis have electricity only a few hours a day.
Men and women travelled from across Iraq to protest bearing Iraqi flags and portraits of Sadr.
All the leaders at next week's summit will be Sunni Muslims except Mr Maliki. Syria's Bashar al-Assad, a member of the small Alawite minority sect, is not invited because the Arab League suspended the membership of Damascus.
Sadr, who led uprisings against the US presence before American troops withdrew last year but is now a key member of Mr Maliki's ruling coalition, has banned protests during the summit to show "hospitality" to the guests.
Reuters