Up to 60 international missions would typically be active at Iraqi excavation sites, but all have now left the country, according to a government official in Baghdad, halting work on some of the world’s oldest known civilizations.

German archaeologist Adelheid Otto of the University of Munich said her team had begun work at the ancient city of Shuruppak, modern-day Tell Fara, on Feb. 28, the day the conflict started. The group initially continued operations despite nearby rocket and drone activity.

However, Iraqi authorities later advised them to leave, cutting short research that had already yielded discoveries including ancient cuneiform tablets.

Otto described the interruption as a significant setback to ongoing work.At the site of Nippur, a 6,000-year-old city, University of Chicago professor Augusta McMahon said her team departed on March 10 under pressure to evacuate amid escalating security concerns.

The eight-member team was escorted out of the area by Iraqi officials.McMahon said the evacuation marked her third withdrawal from the region in recent years, following earlier disruptions in Iraq in 2024 and Syria in 2011.

She noted the impact on both international researchers and Iraqi colleagues, whose work depends heavily on sustained field access.

The suspension of excavations leaves key heritage sites, including those linked to early Mesopotamian civilizations, without active international collaboration as security conditions remain uncertain.

The attack occurred early on Saturday, with security sources confirming that the residence of Barzani was targeted. No immediate details were provided on casualties or damage.

Air defense systems also intercepted and shot down another drone near a base used by Kurdish Peshmerga fighters in Duhok province, the sources added.

Sudani condemned the incident and held a phone call with Barzani following the attack, according to a statement from his office. He directed the formation of a joint federal and Kurdistan regional security and technical team to investigate the strikes and identify those responsible.

The move reflects Baghdad’s effort to manage growing instability in the north, where overlapping security jurisdictions between federal and regional authorities complicate response mechanisms.

The incident comes amid a surge in attacks involving Iran-aligned militias and Kurdish forces, as the broader US–Israel war against Iran increasingly spills into Iraqi territory.

Airstrikes in recent weeks have targeted positions associated with the Popular Mobilization Forces as well as Kurdish Peshmerga units in the Kurdistan Region.

Iraq’s military has accused the United States and Israel of conducting some of these strikes.In parallel, Tehran-backed armed groups have launched attacks on U.S. military installations in Iraq and on the U.S. embassy in Baghdad, underscoring the widening scope of the confrontation.

The PMF said in a statement that its Anbar operations commander, Saad al-Baiji, was among those killed when a strike hit a command headquarters during a security meeting attended by senior personnel.

The group accused the United States of carrying out the attack, saying the facility was targeted while fighters were on duty.Health officials said several of the wounded were in critical condition, indicating the death toll could rise.

Security sources told Reuters the airstrike targeted the PMF headquarters during a high-level coordination meeting, amplifying the impact of the attack. The extent of structural damage to the site was not immediately clear.

There was no immediate confirmation or comment from U.S. officials regarding the allegation.

The PMF, also known as Hashd al-Shaabi, is a state-sanctioned umbrella organisation comprising predominantly Shi’ite paramilitary factions. It was formally integrated into Iraq’s security apparatus but includes several groups aligned with Iran.

The strike comes amid intensifying regional tensions following the outbreak of a U.S.-Israeli war with Iran in February. Tehran-backed armed groups have since launched repeated attacks on U.S. bases in Iraq, raising concerns of a broader conflict.

Hostilities have spread beyond Iran’s borders, with Tehran carrying out strikes against Israel and Gulf Arab states hosting U.S. military facilities, while Israel has conducted attacks in Lebanon following cross-border fire by Iran-aligned Hezbollah.

Instead, Iraqis faced years of upheaval and chaos.

The 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq was meant to topple a dictator who had inflicted reckless wars and economic misery on his fellow Iraqis, and then to usher in a thriving democracy.

Instead, Iraqis faced years of upheaval and chaos.

A devastating insurgency, first by Saddam Hussein loyalists and then by al Qaeda, was followed by a sectarian civil war and later the rise of Islamic State, which occupied a third of the country and slaughtered thousands.

Here is a look at some of the violence, including suicide bombings and beheadings, that has plagued Iraq, a major OPEC oil producer and key U.S. ally, since the 2003 war.

* March 20, 2003 – U.S.-led forces invade Iraq to oust Saddam Hussein. The attack crushes the Iraqi military and chases Saddam from power in a span of weeks.

* April 9, 2003 – U.S. troops seize Baghdad. Saddam goes into hiding. Lawlessness emerges in Baghdad and elsewhere.

* May 1, 2003 – President George W. Bush declares that “the United States and our allies have prevailed” in Iraq. As he spoke aboard the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln, a banner behind him stated, “Mission Accomplished”.

* May 23, 2003 – Coalition Provisional Authority head Paul Bremer disbands Iraq’s army and intelligence services, sending hundreds of thousands of angry armed men into the streets.

* Aug. 7, 2003 – At least 17 people are killed in a truck bomb attack on Jordan’s embassy in Baghdad.

* Aug. 19, 2003 – Suicide truck bomb wrecks U.N. headquarters in Baghdad, killing 22 people including U.N. envoy Sergio Vieira de Mello.

* Aug. 29, 2003 – A car bomb kills at least 83 people, including top Shi’ite Muslim leader Ayatollah Mohammed Baqer al-Hakim, at Imam Ali mosque in Najaf.

* Summer 2003 – Insurgency against U.S.-led forces emerges, waged by pro-Saddam guerrillas, then al Qaeda and Shi’ite fighters. U.S. forces fail to find weapons of mass destruction.

* Dec. 13, 2003 – U.S. troops capture Saddam, bearded and bedraggled, hiding in a hole near Tikrit.

* Spring 2004 – Insurgency intensifies in Falluja and elsewhere in mainly Sunni Muslim Anbar province and violence by followers of Shi’ite cleric Moqtada Sadr in the south. U.S. faces international condemnation after photographs emerge showing abuse of detainees at Abu Ghraib jail.

* March 31, 2004 – In Fallujah four Blackwater private security contractors are killed and some of the burnt bodies hung from a bridge.

* May 11, 2004 – Kidnappers behead U.S. businessman Nicholas Berg and videotape his killing.

* October 2004 – Al Qaeda leader in Iraq Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi starts waging bloody attacks designed to turn majority Shi’ite Muslims against minority Sunnis in a civil war.

* June 8, 2006 – Zarqawi is killed by U.S. forces.

* Dec. 30, 2006 – Saddam Hussein hanged by masked executioners after Iraqi court sentences him to death for killings of 148 men and boys in northern Iraq in 1982.

* January 2007 – Bush announces a new war strategy including a “surge” of U.S. troops into Iraq to combat the insurgency.

* October 2007 – Iraq says security guards from the U.S. firm Blackwater “deliberately killed” 17 Iraqis in a shooting in Baghdad, and plans legal steps against them. Blackwater says its guards reacted lawfully to an attack on a convoy.

*Aug. 2010 – Last U.S. combat brigade leaves Iraq.

* July 4, 2014 – Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi seizes world’s attention by climbing the pulpit of Mosul’s medieval al-Nuri mosque in black clerical garb on a Friday to declare his caliphate.

*2017 – Islamic State’s brutal rule, during which it killed and executed thousands in the name of a narrow interpretation of Islam, comes to an end in Mosul when Iraqi and international forces defeat the group there.

* Oct. 19, 2018 – President Donald Trump declares ISIS defeated.

* Oct. 27, 2019 – Trump announces Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi killed himself during a night raid by U.S. special forces in Syria. Baghdadi dies alongside three of his children by detonating an explosives-laden vest when he fled into a dead-end tunnel during the attack.

He saw a sniper, wearing a balaclava and dressed in black as he stood on top of an under-construction building that overlooked the demonstrations.

Baghdad — Iran-backed militias deployed snipers on Baghdad rooftops during Iraq’s deadliest anti-government protests in years, two Iraqi security officials told.

The deployment of militia fighters, which has not been previously reported, underscores the chaotic nature of Iraqi politics amid mass protests that led to more than 100 deaths and 6,000 injuries during the week starting Oct. 1. Such militias have become a fixture here with Iran’s rising influence. They sometimes operate in conjunction with Iraqi security forces but they retain their own command structures.

The Iraqi security sources told Reuters that the leaders of Iran-aligned militias decided on their own to help put down the mass protests against the government of Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi, whose one-year-old administration is backed by powerful Iran-backed armed groups and political factions.

“We have confirmed evidence that the snipers were elements of militias reporting directly to their commander instead of the chief commander of the armed forces,” said one of the Iraqi security sources. “They belong to a group that is very close to the Iranians.”

A second Iraqi security source, who attended daily government security briefings, said militia men clad in black shot protesters on the third day of unrest, when the death toll soared to more than 50 from about half a dozen. The fighters were directed by Abu Zainab al-Lami, head of security for the Hashid, a grouping of mostly Shi’ite Muslim paramilitaries backed by Iran, the second source said. The Hashid leader was tasked with quashing the protests by a group of other senior militia commanders, the source said. The sources did not say how many snipers were deployed by militia groups.

A spokesman for the Hashid, Ahmed al-Asadi, denied the groups took part in the crackdown. “No members were present in the protest areas. None of the elements of the Hashid took part in confronting protesters,” Asadi said in a statement to Reuters.

Iraqi Interior Ministry spokesman Saad Maan said state security forces did not fire directly at protesters and blamed unnamed “vicious” shooters for the mass deaths and injuries. The government has opened an investigation to determine who shot the protesters and who ordered it, Maan said in a news conference on Oct. 6.

The assertion that security forces did not participate in the violence seemed to contradict a statement on Oct. 7 from the Iraqi security forces which said excessive force had been used and promised to hold individuals accountable for violence against civilians.

An official with the prime minister’s office said in a statement to Reuters Wednesday that it would be “premature to lay the blame on any parties, whether from Hashid or other security forces, before we end the investigation. Let’s wait and see who gave the order ‘shoot to kill.’”

Mohammed Ridha, the head of parliament’s security and defense committee, said in statement on Thursday that an initial investigation showed there were “deliberate killings of protesters by some elements”, without elaborating.

Iran’s role in responding to the demonstrations was another reminder of Tehran’s reach in Iraq, where a sizable number of former militia commanders are now members of parliament and support the Iranian agenda. Stability of the Iraqi government is in the best interests of Iran, which has been steadily amassing influence in Iraq since 2003, when the U.S.-led invasion toppled the Islamic Republic’s arch-enemy Saddam Hussein. Iran is Iraq’s biggest trading partner.

Iran’s delegation to the United Nations did not immediately respond Wednesday afternoon to questions from Reuters about its support of militias and their involvement in the violence against protesters. Leaders of militias in Iraq have denied getting training and weapons from Iran.

As protests entered their third day, on Oct. 3, snipers appeared on Baghdad rooftops. A Reuters cameraman who was covering the unrest near Baghdad’s Tahrir Square that afternoon said he saw a sniper, wearing a balaclava and dressed in black as he stood on top of an under-construction building that overlooked the demonstrations.

Protesters fled as the sniper opened fire. One protester who was shot in the head was carried away in a large crowd. Another who was shot in the head appeared to have died and was rushed off in a truck. When his phone rang, a friend recognized that the man’s brother was calling.

“Don’t tell him he died,” the friend said.

The protests started Oct. 1 amid public rage over chronic shortages of jobs, electricity and clean water. Iraqis blame politicians and officials for systemic corruption that has prevented Iraq from recovering after years of sectarian violence and a devastating war to defeat Islamic State.

Any vacuum of power could prove challenging for the region, given that Baghdad is an ally of both the United States and Iran, who are locked in their own political standoff. Thousands of U.S. troops are stationed in the country in positions not far from those of Iran-backed Shi’ite militias.

The second security source told Reuters that the snipers were using radio communications equipment that was provided by Iran and is difficult to intercept, giving the groups an essentially private network.

A group of senior commanders from Iran’s Revolutionary Guards traveled to Iraq on the second day of the protests and met with Iraqi intelligence and security officials, according to a diplomat in the region familiar with Iran’s decision-making process. After the meeting, senior Revolutionary Guard officers with experience in curbing civil unrest continued to advise the Iraqi government, the diplomat said, although no Iranian soldiers were deployed.

A senior commander of one of the Iran-backed militias – who said his group was not involved in efforts to stop the protests or the resulting violence – said Tehran consulted closely with forces trying to quell the demonstrations.

“After two days, they jumped in and supplied the government and militias with intelligence,” the militia leader told Reuters. “Iranian advisors insisted on having a role and warned us that the ongoing protests, if not reversed, will undermine the government of Abdul Mahdi.”

Original story posted by Reuters.