WATCH: Swedish embassy in Baghdad stormed, set alight over Quran burning

In protest against the planned burning of Quran in Sweden, hundreds of protesters stormed the Swedish embassy in central Baghdad early on Thursday morning, storming its walls and lighting it ablaze.

Condemning the attack, Swedish foreign ministry said that all Baghdad embassy staff are safe. According to a Reuters report, citing posts in a well-known Telegram channel connected to the influential cleric and other pro-Sadr media, the rally on Thursday was organised by followers of Shi’ite cleric Muqtada Sadr to oppose the planned Quran burning in Sweden in weeks. According to Swedish news agency TT, Swedish police granted an application for a public meeting outside the Iraqi embassy in Stockholm on Thursday. The application says the applicant seeks to burn the Quran and the Iraqi flag, TT reported. Two people were set to participate in the demonstration, according to TT, adding one of the people was the same person who set a Quran on fire outside a Stockholm mosque in June. A series of videos posted to the Telegram group, One Baghdad, and other platforms showed people gathering around the embassy around 1 am on Thursday (2200 GMT on Wednesday) chanting pro-Sadr slogans and storming the embassy complex around an hour later. “Yes, yes to the Quran,” protesters chanted. Videos later showed smoke rising from a building in the embassy complex and protesters standing on its roof. Quran protests Iraq’s foreign ministry also condemned the incident and said in a statement the Iraqi government had instructed security forces to carry out a swift investigation, identify perpetrators and hold them to account. By dawn on Thursday, security forces had deployed inside the embassy and smoke rose from the building as fire-fighters extinguished stubborn embers, according to Reuters report, citing witnesses. Most protesters had withdrawn, with a few dozen milling around outside the embassy. Late last month, Sadr called for protests against Sweden and the expulsion of the Swedish ambassador after the Koran burning in Stockholm by an Iraqi man. Swedish police charged the man with agitation against an ethnic or national group. In a newspaper interview, he described himself as an Iraqi refugee seeking to ban the Koran, the central religious text of Islam, believed by Muslims to be a revelation from God. Two major protests took place outside of the Swedish embassy in Baghdad in the aftermath of that Koran burning, with protesters breaching the embassy grounds on one occasion. The governments of several Muslim countries, including Iraq, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, Jordan and Morocco issued protests about the incident, with Iraq seeking the man’s extradition to face trial in the country. The United States also condemned it, but added that Sweden’s issuing of the permit supported freedom of expression and was not an endorsement of the action. With inputs from agencies