BAGHDAD: Iraqi security forces cracked down on rioters in Baghdad who were attacking a KFC on Monday, wounding three with live fire and detaining at least 12, security and medical sources told Reuters.
The attack on a KFC on the city’s Palestine Street is at least the third in just over a week and was reported just as a senior official in the Iran-backed Iraqi armed group Kataib Hezbollah released a statement calling on Iraqis to “boycott and expel” US brands.
The attack caused significant damage but no injuries to staff or customers, the sources said.
The store was opened by Americana Group, the Middle East and North Africa franchisee of fast-food restaurants KFC and Pizza Hut. Americana did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Iraqi security forces did not immediately comment on Monday night’s attacks.
The KFC brand, previously known as Kentucky Fried Chicken, is owned by US-based Yum! Brands.
Iraq has been trying to encourage foreign businesses to set up shop in the country amid a period of relative stability that has at times been shaken by security incidents, including months of tit-for-tat attacks between Iran-backed armed groups and US forces.
Western brands in many parts of the world have been facing boycotts and other protests during the Israel-Hamas war, reflecting public anger over Israel’s military operation that has killed more than 36,000 people in Gaza, according to health authorities there, and caused a humanitarian crisis.
The war began when Hamas militants attacked Israel on Oct. 7, killing 1,200 people and abducting some 250 others, of whom some 120 remain in Gaza, according to Israeli tallies.
Iraq detains at least 12 after latest attack on Baghdad KFC
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Iraq detains at least 12 after latest attack on Baghdad KFC
- The attack caused significant damage but no injuries to staff or customers, the sources said
Israel says Hamas ‘will be disarmed’ after group proposes weapons freeze
- A top Hamas leader said on Wednesday that the militant group is open to a weapons “freeze,” but rejects the demand for disarmament
DOHA: Israel said on Thursday that Hamas “will be disarmed” as part of the US-sponsored peace plan for Gaza, after a top leader from the Islamist movement suggested a weapons freeze.
“There will be no future for Hamas under the 20-point plan. The terror group will be disarmed and Gaza will be demilitarised,” the Israeli official told AFP.
Hamas’s Khaled Meshaal told Qatari news channel Al Jazeera on Wednesday that the militant group is open to a weapons “freeze,” but rejects the demand for disarmament put forward in US President Donald Trump’s plan for Gaza.
A top Hamas leader told Qatari news channel Al Jazeera on Wednesday that the militant group is open to a weapons “freeze,” but rejects the demand for disarmament put forward in the US-sponsored peace plan for Gaza.
“The idea of total disarmament is unacceptable to the resistance (Hamas). What is being proposed is a freeze, or storage (of weapons)... to provide guarantees against any military escalation from Gaza with the Israeli occupation,” said Khaled Meshaal in an interview aired Wednesday.
“This is the idea we’re discussing with the mediators, and I believe that with pragmatic American thinking... such a vision could be agreed upon with the US administration,” he said.
The US-sponsored ceasefire deal, in effect since October 10, halted the war that began after Hamas’s deadly attack on Israel on October 7, 2023. But it remains fragile as Israel and Hamas accuse each other almost daily of breaches.
The agreement is composed of three phases. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu recently indicated that it was about to enter the second phase.
Under that phase Israeli troops would further withdraw from their positions in Gaza and be replaced by an international stabilization force (ISF), while Hamas would lay down its weapons.
Netanyahu is expected to meet with US President Donald Trump in the US later this month to discuss the steps forward in the truce.
But the Palestinian militant group has indicated it would not agree to giving up its arsenal.
“Disarmament for a Palestinian means stripping away his very soul. Let’s achieve that goal another way,” Meshaal added.
In the first phase of the deal Palestinian militants committed to releasing the remaining 48 living and dead captives held in the territory. All of the hostages have so far been released except for one body.
In exchange, Israel has released nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners in its custody and returned the bodies of hundreds of dead Palestinians.
As for the international peacekeeping force, Meshaal said the group was open to its deployment along Gaza’s border with Israel, but would not agree to it operating inside the Palestinian territory, calling such a plan an “occupation.”
“We have no objection to international forces or international stabilization forces being deployed along the border, like UNIFIL,” he said, referring to the UN peacekeeping force deployed in southern Lebanon near the Israeli border.
“They would separate Gaza from the occupation,” he added, referring to Israel.
“As for the presence of international forces inside Gaza, in Palestinian culture and consciousness that means an occupying force.”
Mediators as well as Arab and Islamic nations, he said, could act as “guarantors” that there would be no escalation originating from inside Gaza.
“The danger comes from the Zionist entity, not from Gaza,” he added, referring to Israel.
