STOCKHOLM (Reuters) -Seconded staff at the Swedish embassy in Baghdad have been temporarily withdrawn for security reasons after it was stormed by Iraqis, Sweden said on Friday, amid persistent anger among Muslim states about a planned Koran burning in Sweden’s capital.
Iraq expelled the Swedish ambassador on Thursday and recalled its charge d’affaires in Stockholm in protest at a planned attack on the Koran that had prompted hundreds of protesters to vandalise the embassy in the Iraqi capital.
A Swedish foreign ministry spokesperson said seconded staff and operations had been relocated to Stockholm, but declined to give further comment.
At the scheduled event in Stockholm on Thursday, two protesters kicked and partially destroyed a book they said was the Koran but did not set it alight.
If the burning had gone ahead, it would have been the second such burning in Sweden in weeks. The Koran, the central religious text of Islam, is believed by Muslims to be a revelation from God.
Demonstrators on Friday took to the streets of Beirut and Baghdad to protest against what they condemned as the desecration of the Koran in Sweden.
In Baghdad, dozens of people on Friday carried copies of the Koran and portraits of the Shi’ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr during a demonstration.
Sadr, whose supporters had called the protest during which the Swedish embassy was stormed on Thursday, told a press conference on Thursday he would not escalate unless a similar event happens again.
In Lebanon crowds gathered outside mosques to demonstrate, following a call by the Iran-backed Shi’ite group Hezbollah for protests after Friday prayers, footage broadcast by Hezbollah’s al-Manar television showed.
In Baalbek in Lebanon a Swedish flag was burnt during a protest by hundreds of people, al-Manar footage showed.
Swedish Foreign Minister Tobias Billstrom on Thursday said that the storming of the embassy was “completely unacceptable” and later also that the government strongly rejected desecrations of the Koran or any other holy scripture.
“The Swedish Government understands that the despicable acts committed by individuals at demonstrations in Sweden may be offensive to Muslims,” he said in a statement.
Also late on Thursday, Saudi Arabia joined a string of Middle Eastern countries in summoning Swedish diplomats over the event earlier in the day in Stockholm.
Sweden has seen several Koran burnings in recent years, mostly by far-right and anti-Muslim activists.
Turkey issued arrest warrants for Danish politician Rasmus Paludan and nine other suspects for burning a copy of the Koran in front of the Turkish embassy in Stockholm in January, the Turkish justice minister said.
(Reporting by Louise Breusch Rasmussen in Copenhagen, Johan Ahlander in Stockholm, Laila Bassam in Beirut and Haider Kadhim in Baghdad, editing by Anna Ringstrom, William Maclean)
