Baghdad, 20 July 2023 (dpa/MIA) - Iraq expelled the Swedish ambassador on Thursday amid an escalating crisis over another desecration of Islam's holy book the Koran in the Swedish capital Stockholm.

The Iraqi government said it would also withdraw its envoy from Stockholm. 

Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Soudani, in a tweet, said the Swedish government had granted "repeated permission" for people to burn the sacred text and insult Islam.

Iraq's move to cut top diplomatic ties came hours after demonstrators stormed the Swedish embassy in Baghdad and set fire to it, provoked by a planned burning of the Koran later on Thursday. Witnesses said hundreds marched to the embassy, many of them climbing over barriers and shouting "Yes, yes to the Koran."

A man trampled on a copy of the Islamic scripture during the afternoon action on a grassy area near the Iraqi embassy in Stockholm. Out of view of spectators and cameras, two protestors set fire to the Koran, but the fire did not really catch, Swedish news agency TT reported.

No one on site observed the Koran burning, but pictures showed small burn marks on the book.

The man who damaged the Koran on Thursday was the same person who set fire to a Koran near a Stockholm mosque in late June, TT reported. Swedish media said the man is a native of Iraq.

Earlier, Swedish Foreign Minister Tobias Billström said demonstrators in Iraq had stormed the Swedish embassy at 2 am, vandalizing it and setting it alight. He condemned the incident and expressed strong criticism of the Iraqi authorities, following a similar incident a month earlier.

"What has happened is totally unacceptable and the government condemns these attacks in the strongest possible terms," Billström said in a statement.

He said the government was in contact with high-ranking Iraqi representatives and had summoned the Iraqi chargé d'affaires - the country's highest diplomat in Sweden - to the Foreign Ministry in Stockholm.

An Iraqi court meanwhile ordered the arrest of 20 people suspected of involvement in attacking the embassy, according to Iraq's state news agency INA. 

Among the protesters were supporters of the influential Iraqi Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, who accused Sweden of showing hostility to Islam.

"Now, [Sweden] is crossing diplomatic lines and political norms, and announces hostility to Iraq by giving approval of burning the Iraqi flag," al-Sadr said on Twitter.

The Swedish Foreign Ministry said it was in constant contact with staff on the ground.

The embassy staff had been able to get to safety, Billström said. At the same time, he criticized the Iraqi authorities for failing to protect the embassy, as was their duty.

Videos of the demonstration showed security forces doing little to quell the night's tumult.

The protest was the second against the Swedish embassy in Baghdad in less than a month.

Photo: printscreen