Synchronised explosions in mostly Shia Muslim areas kill at least 74 and injure 250, undermining planned US troop withdrawal
Source: Martin Chulov, Guardian Co UK
A series of co-ordinated explosions have killed at least 74 people and wounded 250 more across Iraq, shattering calm during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan and showing that extremists remain a threat more than eight years after the fall of Baghdad.
The bombs were detonated in largely Shia Muslim areas of the country. Casualties were mostly Shia-led security forces. A Sunni extremist group, the al-Qaida-affiliated Islamic State of Iraq, was blamed.
A jihadist site praised the attacks and said they targeted “Shi’ites, Christians and the apostate awakening councils”, in reference to the US-backed Sunni groups who turned on al-Qaida in 2007.
In total, 13 bombs exploded. Many were apparently detonated by suicide bombers. If so, this would further undermine Iraqi and US military claims that al-Qaida and its Iraqi jihadist groups are a spent force after almost a decade of war.
The deadliest blast was in the south-eastern city of Kut, where 37 people were killed by a roadside bomb and then a car bomb, which detonated as bystanders gathered following the first explosion.
In the Shia shrine cities of Kerbala and Najaf up to 11 security officers and members of the public were killed by car bombs. Bombs rocked Baquba, Tikrit and Kirkuk and there were at least six explosions in Baghdad, although only three people were killed in the capital.
The ease with which car bombs were moved around Iraq is a further blow to the standing of Iraq’s security forces, who insist they have contained sectarian violence and have Sunni and Shia extremist groups under control. read more
Shop owners inspect their destroyed shop after a car bomb in Kut, Iraq, among synchronised blasts which ripped through 13 Iraqi cities. Photograph: Hadi Mizban/AP
Editor’s Note: The view ‘on the street’ in Baghdad is that now only the Iraqi Government and the Americans are able to carry out such an attack. Al Qaeeda never was very successful in Iraq and lately was considered nearly finished. The reason is clear: Some Iraqi Government officials (and of course the Americans) want some Americans to stay here for their own protection (and gain).
Views from the streets in Baghdad would say that the only organization who is able to carry this out now in the Government (or the American special forces). Some people in the government, feeling that they still need the Americans for their own personal protection (and gain), try to create a situation that agreement to extend permission to US forces to remain in Iraq, can be reached.
Before today we heard that Al Qaeeda Iraq is more or less defeated. All of a sudden we hear that they are supposed to be capable of today’s action… (!?!?!?!?)