Heavy clashes erupted in Baghdad on Monday, killing almost 20 people, after powerful Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr said he would quit politics, prompting his loyalists to storm a government palace and fight with rival groups.
As night fell, machine-gun fire and explosions rang out, with tracer fire rising into the sky above the Green Zone that houses government headquarters and foreign embassies, in the worst fighting the Iraqi capital has seen in years.
It followed a day of violence prompted by Sadr's announcement that he would withdraw from all political activity — a decision he said was in response to the failure of other Shiite leaders and parties to reform a corrupt and decaying governing system.