Iraq - 127 dead as bombers aim for heart of government
shyster1
Five devices including three suicide bombs bring carnage to Baghdad
ministries on the day national elections are announced
By Patrick Cockburn
The Independent - UK
Wednesday, 9 December 2009
Car bombers yesterday killed as many as 127 people in Baghdad in a
series of attacks that left the city's streets strewn with the
wreckage of burning vehicles and the charred bodies of the dead.
The five bombs, including three that were detonated by suicide
bombers, exploded in succession across the Iraqi capital over the
course of an hour yesterday morning, targeting a mosque, a market, a
government ministry, an educational college and a court. Some 425
people were wounded.
The coordinated assault is likely to be the work of al-Qa'ida in Iraq,
which has adopted the tactic of launching devastating bombing attacks
about every six weeks to maximise political and psychological impact.
One aim is to discredit the government's claim that it has greatly
improved security in the last couple of years. Some 155 people were
killed in the last big attack by bombers on 25 October and over 122 in
an earlier assault in August. The Iraqi foreign, justice and trade
ministries were all targeted.
The sound of screams and police sirens followed the detonation of each
bomb as a cloud of oily black smoke from burning vehicles rose over
the capital. Among the buildings hit was the headquarters of the
Rafidain Bank which was housing the Finance Ministry, whose building
was damaged by a bomb in August.
Although the government and its critics have both claimed that the
security forces have been infiltrated, suicide bombings are very
difficult to prevent and US troops were unable to stop far more
numerous bombings when they were in control of Baghdad. One of the
bombs yesterday was carried inside an ambulance, and several judges
were killed when a suicide bomber drove into the compound of a court
beside the zoo in west Baghdad. The streets of central Baghdad tend to
be packed with pedestrians and vehicles so civilian casualties will
always be high. Government ministries and department have highly
vulnerable queues of people outside waiting for permits or paperwork.
The bombings show that al-Qa'ida, while not the force it was, still
has the ability to pool its resources and co-ordinate spectacular
attacks such as the one yesterday. But al-Qa'ida depends on the Sunni
community that was badly defeated by the far more numerous Shia in the
sectarian civil war in 2006 to 2007. It is unlikely that the Sunni
would want to fight another war.
The attacks came as a date was finally announced for the next
election, which will be staged on 6 March. It had been delayed because
of Sunni and Kurdish objections to the way the polls were being
staged. The outcome is likely to be the re-election of the Shia-
Kurdish coalition that has dominated Iraqi politics since the fall of
Saddam Hussein.
The al-Qa'ida bombings are unlikely to change the course of the
election campaign, though the Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki will be
criticised for failing to improve security to anything like the extent
that he says he has. In a statement he read yesterday, Mr Maliki said:
"The timing of the cowardly attacks, after parliament overcame the
last obstacle ahead of the elections, confirm that the enemies of Iraq
and its people aim to sow chaos in the country."
There is no reason that the elections should be affected by these
attacks, although they could be interpreted as a sign that the Sunni
Arabs of Iraq will not allow themselves to be marginalised and will
respond violently to any attempt to do so.
The Sunni fought the US occupation from 2003 to 2007 but then allied
themselves with US forces as they came under intense pressure from
Shia death squads and militias.
Iraq's misery: The endless insurgency
8 December 2009 Two powerful car bombs exploded outside the offices of
the Justice Ministry and the Baghdad Provincial Council building,
killing at least 155 people. One of the blasts also destroyed St
George's Church, the only Anglican church in Iraq. More than 20
children on a bus on their way to a daycare centre next to the Justice
Ministry were among the victims. Local politicians said the blasts
were intended to destroy the credibility of Prime Minister Nouri al-
Maliki and faith in his ability to make Iraq safe after the departure
of US forces.
19 August 2009 "Bloody Wednesday": coordinated bomb and mortar attacks
went off at 10.45am outside government buildings and elsewhere across
the city, on the sixth anniversary of the bombing of the United
Nations compound in Baghdad, which brought the UN's mission in Iraq to
a sudden end. At least 101 people died.
14 August 2007 Nearly 800 inhabitants of the village of Qahtaniya, in
the far north of the country, died and 1,500 were injured in the
deadliest attack of the Iraqi insurgency to date, blown up by four
suicide truck bombs, one of them a fuel tanker. Tension had been
growing between Sunni Muslims and the Yazidi, a Kurdish minority
stigmatised as heretics by extremists, who were the victims of the
attack.
18 April 2007 In an attack on Shia areas of Baghdad which gave
residents grim reminders of the bloodiest days of the insurgency,
nearly 200 people died when five car bombs exploded across the city.
23 November 2006 A series of car bombs and mortar attacks struck Sadr
City, Baghdad's huge Shia slum, killing at least 215 people and
injuring 257 more. The attacks were timed for the day when residents
of the slum were commemorating the life of Mohammad Mohammad Sadeq al-
Sadr, the high Shia cleric killed by Saddam Hussein's regime.