Hundreds of militants penetrated the Green Zone, which hosts Iraqi government buildings and many foreign embassies, including that of the United States, early Dec. 31. They climbed the US Embassy compound's outer walls, threw Molotov cocktails over them, smashed a door and windows and set a wall and a sentry box on fire, according to reports. The State Department, however, said the embassy building itself was not breached.

The attack was a reaction to the Dec. 29 US strike against Kataib Hezbollah facilities in northern Iraq and Syria that killed dozens of Popular Mobilization Units (PMU) members and wounded others. The US strike came in response to repeated Katyusha rocket attacks against US bases in Iraq, the last of which, on the K1 base in northern Kirkuk, killed one US contractor and wounded others.

At the embassy on New Year's Eve, protesters also wrote several slogans on the walls, such as “US embassy closed by order of the people,” “Death to America and Israel” and “Qasem Soleimani is our leader.” Provocatively, some also wrote, “The uncle was here,” in reference to Soleimani, the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps' Quds Force commander.

The groups were from Kataib Hezbollah, the Badr Organization, Saraya al-Khorasani and Asaib Ahl al-Haq. They raised their factions' flags in the protests and on the embassy walls.