THE Iraqi Communist Party has issued a demand for early elections and an end to the “bloody repression and killing of demonstrators” after clashes with security services intensified at the weekend.

It warned of an escalation of repression against mass protests in the Iraqi capital Baghdad and other provinces which led to the killing of at least four people on Saturday.

Clashes intensified after Islamist cleric Muqtada al-Sadr withdrew his support for the anti-government protests. His supporters had often acted as a barrier between the protesters and police. But many of them left the sit-in camps overnight, leaving those remaining vulnerable to the Iraqi security services.

Police moved in on the camps in Baghdad’s Tahrir Square and in the southern city of Basra using tear gas and live ammunition and burning tents to disband the protests by force.

Three were killed and 14 injured in Nassiriya, according to medics, when security forces retook control of a bridge that had been occupied for days by protesters.

But huge demonstrations were seen again yesterday despite Mr Sadr’s announcement. He called instead for demonstrations against the US embassy in Baghdad to call for its military to leave Iraq “as requested by the government earlier this month.”

ICP member Fahad al-Alyawi was shot dead by the security forces in central Baghdad on Friday afternoon while delivering food to protesters.

The party warned that the “cowardly crime and killing in cold blood” of Mr Alyawi was part of a desperate attempt to crush the anti-government uprising.

More than 600 protesters, mainly young people, have been killed, and thousands injured since protests began in October.

The ICP said that many have been the victims of assassinations by armed assailants and of abduction by militias. Several civil activists have “disappeared” and their fate is still unknown.

In a statement the party called on the government to “comply immediately with the will of the people” and their demands for a new government away from the system of sectarian power-sharing and corruption.

“This government should provide the prerequisites for early elections after enacting a fair election law and the formation of a truly independent electoral commission, away from … those who have the blood of the participants in the uprising on their hands,” it continued.

This would be the “starting point on the path of salvation from another dark era which wasted 16 years of our people’s lives,” the party concluded, calling for the release of all political prisoners held during the protests.