war in Iraq

[11/2/10] Rapid-fire bombings and mortar strikes killed 76 people and wounded more than 200 across Baghdad's myriad neighborhoods Tuesday, demonstrating the insurgents' ability to carry out coordinated strikes from one side of the capital to the other.

The attack — blasts in at least 13 separate neighborhoods — was clearly designed to hit civilians at restaurants and cafes where many Iraqis were gathered to enjoy the warm evening. The sophistication and the targets — Shiites — suggested that al-Qaida-linked Sunni militants were responsible for the deadliest day in Iraq since May.

The strikes, two days after the bloody siege of a downtown church, were stunning in their scope — indicating a high degree of coordination and complexity from an insurgency that just a few months ago U.S. and Iraqi officials were saying was all but defeated.

"They say the situation is under the control. Where is their control?" said Hussein al-Saiedi, a 26-year-old resident of Baghdad's sprawling Sadr City slum, where 21 people were killed when a parked car blew up near a market in Tuesday's deadliest bombing.

[8/26/10] BAGHDAD - Bombers and gunmen killed at least 56 Iraqis in more than two dozen attacks across the country yesterday, mostly targeting security forces and rekindling memories of the days when insurgents ruled the streets.

The attacks made August the deadliest month for Iraqi policemen and soldiers in two years, and came a day after the U.S. said that the number of American troops had fallen to fewer than 50,000, the fewest since the war began in 2003.

"Where is the protection, where are the security troops?" said Abu Mohammed, who saw a car bombing near Baghdad's Adan Square that killed two passers-by. "What is going on in the country?"

Iraq's foreign minister said insurgents are attempting to sow as much chaos as possible, as lawmakers struggle to form a new government and Americans withdraw troops.

"Here you have a government paralysis, you have a political vacuum you have the U.S. troop withdrawal," Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari said. "And, in such environment, these terrorist networks flourish."

[8/18/10] BAGHDAD—Young men from some of Iraq’s poorest areas waited all night outside an army recruitment center, only to become easy prey Tuesday for a suicide bomber who killed 61 in the crowd. Desperate for jobs, dazed survivors rushed to get back in line after the attack.

Officials quickly blamed al-Qaida for the deadliest single act of violence in the capital in months. Police said 125 people were wounded.

Bodies of bloodied young men, some still clutching job applications in their hands, were scattered on the ground outside the headquarters’ gate. Soldiers collected bits of flesh and stray hands and legs as frantic Iraqis showed up to search for relatives.

The early morning bombing in central Baghdad starkly displayed Iraqi forces’ failure to plug even the most obvious holes in their security two weeks before the formal end of the U.S. combat role in Iraq.

Army and police recruitment centers have been frequent targets for militants, underscoring the determination of the applicants to risk their lives for work in a country with an unemployment rate estimated as high as 30 percent.

“I have to get this job at any cost in order to feed my family,” said Ali Ahmed, 34, a father of two who returned to the bloody street after taking a friend to the hospital. “I have no option but to come back to the line. If there were other job opportunities, I would not be here in the first place.”

[7/27/10] Two car bombs targeting Shiite pilgrims during a religious festival in the holy city of Karbala killed 25 people on Monday, Iraqi police and hospital officials said. Sunni extremists are suspected.

Militants detonated two parked cars filled with explosives about two miles (three kilometers) apart as crowds of pilgrims passed by. Police and medical officials in Karbala, 50 miles (80 kilometers) south of Baghdad, said 68 people were injured in the attacks.

The pilgrims were on their way to Karbala to take part in an important religious holiday, known as Shabaniyah, that attracts devout Shiites from around the country.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the Monday bombings, but the method is the hallmark of Sunni extremists.

While violence has dropped dramatically in the past years in Iraq, suspected Sunni insurgents regularly target Shiite religious ceremonies and holy places in an attempt to re-ignite sectarian tensions that brought Iraq to the brink of civil war in 2005 and 2007.

[7/19/10] BAGHDAD — A suicide bomber ripped through a line of anti-al-Qaida Sunni fighters waiting to collect their paychecks near an Iraqi military base as nearly 50 people were killed in violence west of Baghdad.

The attack is the deadliest this year against the groups that turned against the terror network amid an apparent campaign by insurgents to undermine confidence in the government security forces and their allies.

The attacks on the Awakening Council members highlighted the daunting security challenges the country faces as the U.S. works to withdraw all combat troops in Iraq.

[7/8/10] BAGHDAD — Militants struck across the Iraqi capital Wednesday, killing more than 50 people, including 32 in a suicide bombing that targeted pilgrims commemorating a revered Shiite saint, Iraqi police said.

The attacks – the deadliest of which occurred in northern Baghdad's predominantly Sunni neighborhood of Azamiyah – offered a clear indication of the push by insurgents to exploit Iraq's political vacuum and destabilize the country as U.S. troops head home.

Police said the bloody suicide bombing that killed 32 and wounded more than 90 people, split the hot Wednesday evening air as Shiite pilgrims were about to cross a bridge leading to the a shrine in the Shiite Kazimiyah neighborhood where a revered imam is buried.

[4/6/10] The Web site WikiLeaks.org released a graphic video on Monday showing an American helicopter shooting and killing a Reuters photographer and driver in a July 2007 attack in Baghdad.

A senior American military official confirmed that the video was authentic.

Reuters had long pressed for the release of the video, which consists of 38 minutes of black-and-white aerial video and conversations between pilots in two Apache helicopters as they open fire on people on a street in Baghdad. The attack killed 12, among them the Reuters photographer, Namir Noor-Eldeen, 22, and the driver, Saeed Chmagh, 40.

David Schlesinger, the editor in chief of Reuters news, said in a statement that the video was “graphic evidence of the dangers involved in war journalism and the tragedies that can result.”

On the day of the attack, United States military officials said that the helicopters had been called in to help American troops who had been exposed to small-arms fire and rocket-propelled grenades in a raid. “There is no question that coalition forces were clearly engaged in combat operations against a hostile force,” Lt. Col. Scott Bleichwehl, a spokesman for the multinational forces in Baghdad, said then.

But the video does not show hostile action. Instead, it begins with a group of people milling around on a street, among them, according to WikiLeaks, Mr. Noor-Eldeen and Mr. Chmagh. The pilots believe them to be insurgents, and mistake Mr. Noor-Eldeen’s camera for a weapon. They aim and fire at the group, then revel in their kills.

“Look at those dead bastards,” one pilot says. “Nice,” the other responds.

[4/5/10] Suicide attackers detonated three car bombs in quick succession near foreign embassies in Baghdad on Sunday, killing more than 40 people in coordinated strikes that Iraqi officials said were intended to disrupt efforts to form a new government.

The bombings followed the execution-style killings of 24 villagers in a Sunni area two days earlier, a spike in violence that suggests insurgents are seizing on the political uncertainty after the recent election to try to destabilize the country as U.S. troops prepare to leave. No clear winner emerged from the March 7 vote.