Shia Protesters Invade Baghdad's Green Zone Breaking Into Iraq's Parliament

Hundreds of supporters of Shi'ite Muslim cleric Moqtada al-Sadr stormed into Baghdad's Green Zone and broke into the Iraqi parliament building.

The protesters, who had gathered outside the heavily fortified district, known as the Green Zone, crossed a bridge over the Tigris River chanting: 'The cowards ran away!' in apparent reference to departing lawmakers before breaking into the parliament building.

The staggering scenes came after Sadr denounced Iraq's politicians' for their failure to reform a political quota system blamed for rampant corruption.

Army special forces unit were dispatched with armoured vehicles to protect sensitive sites, two security officials said.

All entrances of Baghdad had been shut 'as a precautionary measure to maintain the capital's security,' another security official said.

Earlier in the day, a suicide bomber drove a truck loaded with three tonnes of explosives into a gathering of Shi'ite pilgrims in the southeastern Baghdad suburb of Nahrawan, killing 19 people and wounding 48 others in an attack claimed by the ultra-hardline Sunni militants.

Sharqiya TV showed Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi walking inside the Green Zone with dozens of armed guards, discrediting reports he had fled.

Such a breach is unprecedented, though only a few years ago mortars frequently rained down on the 10-square-kilometre Green Zone, which once housed the headquarters of the U.S. occupation and before that one of Saddam Hussein's palaces.

Checkpoints and concrete barriers have blocked bridges and highways leading to the neighbourhood for years, symbolising the isolation of Iraq's leadership from its people.

Video showed protesters attacking a white, armoured SUV with sticks and other objects on Saturday. In separate footage, they beat a man wearing a grey suit.

A Kurdish peshmerga guard at a checkpoint said the protesters surged in after security forces pulled back from an external checkpoint in an unsuccessful effort to secure parliament. They had not been searched before entering the Green Zone, he said.