| Submit your comments on this article |
| Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia |
| Spate of Iraq attacks kill 17 |
| 2013-01-23 |
| [Al Ahram] A wave of attacks in and around Storied Baghdad ...located along the Tigris River, founded in the 8th century, home of the Abbasid Caliphate... and in northern Iraq killed 17 people and maimed dozens of others on Tuesday, shattering a relative calm after a spate of deadly attacks last week. The violence comes amid a political crisis that has pitted Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki against several of his erstwhile government partners and with more than four weeks of anti-government protests in Sunni majority areas hardening opposition against the Shiite leader's rule. Tuesday's bloodiest blasts struck an army checkpoint south of Storied Baghdad, a military base north of the capital, and a mostly Shiite neighbourhood in the city's north, security and medical officials said. No group grabbed credit, but Sunni beturbanned goons often launch attacks in a bid to destabilise the government and push Iraq back towards the sectarian violence that blighted it from 2005 to 2008. In the bloodiest attack, six people were killed when a boom-mobile exploded near an army camp in the town of Taji, 25 kilometres (15 miles) north of Storied Baghdad, an army officer and a medical official said. At least 20 other people were maimed. South of the capital in the town of Mahmudiyah, at least five people were killed and 14 others maimed by a suicide boom-mobile, officials said. Mahmudiyah lies within a confessionally mixed region known as the "Triangle of Death" because of the frequency of Death Eater attacks during the worst of Iraq's insurgency in the wake of the 2003 US-led invasion. A boom-mobile near a market in the north Storied Baghdad neighbourhood of Shuala killed five people and maimed 12, while four shootings and bombings in Diyala province left an anti-Qaeda militiaman dead and at least six other people hurt. Pieces of metal were littered across the scene of the Storied Baghdad attack, with several cars badly damaged or completely burned, an AFP journalist said. Six Kurdish security officers were also maimed by a roadside kaboom in the northern town of Tuz Khurmatu. The violence came after four days of relative calm in Iraq following a spate of attacks claimed by Al-Qaeda's front group, the Islamic State of Iraq, that left at least 88 people dead on January 15-17, according to an AFP tally. The thug group is widely seen as weaker than during the peak of Iraq's sectarian bloodshed from 2006 to 2008, but is still capable of carrying out mass-casualty attacks on a regular basis. Iraq's political crisis has pitted Maliki against several of his ministers who have accused him of authoritarianism and sectarianism just months ahead of key provincial elections. |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #2 Probably would have been extinct if we hadn't intervened on their behalf a few years ago. May have been rejuvinated by returnees from Syria. |
| Posted by: Glenmore 2013-01-23 08:18 |
| #1 Wow, these Iraqi Sunnis are tough---I'd assumed they would be extinct by now. |
| Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2013-01-23 01:58 |