BAGHDAD, April 7 (Xinhua) -- Dozens of protesters stormed the Kuwaiti consulate in Basra, southern Iraq, on Tuesday evening in response to a rocket strike that killed five people earlier in the day, security sources said.
An officer from the Basra Operations Command, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Xinhua that security forces fired tear gas to disperse the crowd. Protesters, however, managed to scale the consulate's wall and enter the compound, which was empty of Kuwaiti staff at the time.
Once inside, the protesters lowered the Kuwait flag and raised the Iraqi flag, the source added.
An Iraqi Interior Ministry source told Xinhua that the demonstration was directly linked to the rocket attack on a residential house in Basra province.
Earlier Tuesday, an unidentified rocket struck a house on a farm in the Khor al-Zubair area south of Basra, killing five people, according to a security source.
Kuwait later condemned the attack on its diplomatic site and said it holds Iraq "fully responsible" for the incident.
The unrest came amid heightened regional tensions following joint strikes by the United States and Israel on Iran starting Feb. 28, to which Iran and its regional allies responded with attacks on Israeli and U.S. interests across the Middle East. ■
