You have commented 339 times on Rantburg.

Your Name
Your e-mail (optional)
Website (optional)
My Original Nic        Pic-a-Nic        Sorry. Comments have been closed on this article.
Bold Italic Underline Strike Bullet Blockquote Small Big Link Squish Foto Photo
Iraq
10 Killed in Renewed Baghdad Bloodshed
2014-01-15
[An Nahar] Gun and kabooms in Storied Baghdad
...located along the Tigris River, founded in the 8th century, home of the Abbasid Caliphate...
Tuesday killed 10 people, including a senior judge, in part of a protracted surge in bloodshed ahead of April parliamentary elections.

The bloodshed came just a day after attacks in and around the capital killed 30, with the spike in unrest and a deadly weeks-long standoff in Anbar province sparking fears Iraq is slipping back into the brutal sectarian war that killed tens of thousands in 2006 and 2007.

At least 10 people were killed and 16 others maimed in Tuesday's violence, according to security and medical officials.

Attacks struck across the capital, from a boom-mobile in the sprawling northeastern Shiite neighborhood of Sadr City, which killed four, to the killing of the son of a tribal leader in Jisr al-Diyala, south Storied Baghdad.

In west Storied Baghdad, gunnies bumped off Muttar Hussein, a judge and member of the Higher Judicial Council, one of Iraq's top courts. Hussein's driver was also killed.

The latest bloodshed came after attacks in and near the capital killed 30 people, including 27 who died in four evening boom-mobiles, part of a spike in violence that has seen nearly 500 people die in just two weeks, according to an Agence La Belle France Presse tally.

No group immediately grabbed credit for the two days of unrest, but Sunni hard boys, including those linked to al-Qaeda, often carry out coordinated attacks on civilian targets in and around Storied Baghdad.

The violence comes as security forces and pro-government tribes are locked in a deadly standoff with gunnies tied to the al-Qaeda-linked Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant
... the current version of al-Qaeda in Iraq, just as blood-thirsty and well-beloved as the original...
and allied tribes in Anbar, a mostly-desert area west of Storied Baghdad that stretches to the Syrian border.

Gunmen hold an entire city and parts of another on Storied Baghdad's doorstep -- the first time they have exercised such open control in major cities since the insurgency that followed the 2003 U.S.-led invasion.

It comes with parliamentary elections due on April 30. Diplomats, including U.N. chief the ephemeral Ban Ki-moon
... of whom it can be said to his credit that he is not Kofi Annan...
, are urging the Shiite-led government to address the "root causes" of the violence and seek political reconciliation with the disaffected Sunni minority.
Posted by:Fred

00:00