Many people are getting the time-line of events completely wrong.
The embassy protests (call it riots if you like) were a response to the US killing at least 25 of them [0], which was a response to them supposedly being responsible for the death of US contractor [1].
There were no casualties during the embassy protests, yet the consequence of that was the US killing QS, and other PMU leadership, near Baghdad airport.
Now some people are peddling stories about how those two were supposedly not connected at all, and the US allegedly had intelligence how QS was planning to attack US Americans all over the world, which comes across as a bit of FUD to distract from the reality that the US just assassinated the general of another nation.
[0] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-50951742
[1] https://edition.cnn.com/2019/12/27/politics/iraq-rocket-atta...