Conflict News: Iraq Violence Claims More Lives

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Iraq violence claims more lives
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Courtesy: Al Jazeera, 30 May 2013
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Car bombs and ambushes kill more than 20 people, including policemen,
amid growing fears of all-out sectarian fighting.
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There are growing fears that Iraq is slipping back into all-out
sectarian fighting.
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Fresh attacks in Iraq, including car bombs in Baghdad, have killed
more than 20, including 12 police officers, amid a surge of violence
that has left 160 dead in a week and increased fears of all-out
sectarian conflict.

On Thursday morning, a car bomb in the neighbourhood of Binouq in
northeast Baghdad killed four people and wounded a dozen more, while
another vehicle packed with explosives went off in the centre of the
capital, leaving two dead and 10 wounded, officials said.

Al Jazeera's Jane Arraf, reporting from Baghdad, said that at least 12
policemen were killed in the northern city of Mosul after unknown
gunmen opened fire on local officers.
"There has not been a claim of responsibility for the attack. But in
the past an al-Qaeda front group has claimed responsility for attacks
on Shia areas and security forces, which they see as illegitimate,"
she said.

Two border policemen were also ambushed along the main Iraq-Jordan
highway and shot dead.
Another explosion in the capital killed one police officer at a
checkpoint in the Karrada district.
Outside of Baquba, two football players were killed and at least nine
injured in a roadside bomb outside a sports stadium.

The latest violence came a day after multiple bomb blasts struck two
neighbourhoods in the Iraqi capital, killing at least 28 people,
including several members of a wedding party.

Our correspondent said there is speculation that the increase in
attacks is a result of score settling between al-Qaeda and security
forces or because of the political crisis which needs to be resolved.
Hoshyar Zebair, the Iraqi foreign minister, said that the pattern of
these attacks is a clear indication that the government needs to
revise its security plans.

Bridal party hit

Wednesday's deadliest attack targeted a bridal party in the southern
Jihad district, killing 16 people and wounding 42 others, police said.

Many of those killed were cheering a bride passing by when the blast
went off, according to authorities.
Jihad district was one of the earliest flashpoints in Baghdad's
descent into sectarian unrest in the years after the 2003 US-led
invasion.

Many of Jihad's Sunni residents earlier this year received threatening
leaflets from a Shia armed group warning them to leave.

Another 12 people were killed and 31 were wounded when a roadside bomb
and then a car bomb exploded near a market in the western Baghdad
district of Abu Ghraib, police said.

The increasing wave of violence in the country is raising fears that
Iraq is slipping back towards an all-out sectarian fighting like that
which nearly tore the country apart in 2006 and 2007.

"We have major concerns. Because what is going on now is the same that
led to what happened in 2006,'' Adnan Faihan, the head of the
political bureau of the Shia armed group Asaib Ahl al-Haq, said.
Iraq security and oil ministry officials also said they foiled an al-
Qaeda plot to pack tanker trucks with explosives to attack a key
Baghdad oil facility.
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