Nearly 90 Killed In Attacks Across Iraq

Business Insider
Ahmed Rasheed

At least 89 people were killed in bomb and gun attacks in Iraq on Monday after 20 died in blasts the previous day in a coordinated surge of violence against mostly Shi'ite Muslim targets.

The bloodshed coincided with an intensifying of the conflict in neighboring Syria.

As well as the dozens of deaths at least 223 people were wounded in bomb attacks in Shi'ite areas of Baghdad, the Shi'ite town of Taji to the north, the mixed northern city of Kirkuk and elsewhere, hospital and police sources said, making it one of Iraq's bloodiest days in weeks.

No group has claimed responsibility for the latest wave of assaults but a senior Iraqi security official blamed the local wing of al Qaeda, made up of Sunni Muslim militants hostile to the Shi'ite-led government, which is friendly with Iran.

"Recent attacks are a clear message that al Qaeda in Iraq is determined to spark a bloody sectarian war," the official said, asking not to be named.

"With what's going on in Syria, these attacks should be taken seriously as a potential threat to our country. Al Qaeda is trying to push Iraq to the verge of Shi'ite-Sunni war," he said. "They want things to be as bad as in Syria."

The last two days of bombings and shootings shattered a two-week lull in violence in the run-up to the Muslim holy fasting month of Ramadan, which started in Iraq on Saturday.

Sectarian slaughter peaked in 2006-2007 but deadly attacks have persisted while political tensions among Iraq's main Shi'ite, Sunni and Kurdish factions have mounted since U.S. troops left the country in December.

TRAIL OF DESTRUCTION

In Taji, 20 km (12 miles) north of Baghdad, six explosions, including a car bomb, went off near a housing complex. A seventh blast there caused carnage among police who had arrived at the scene of the earlier ones. In all 32 people were killed, including 14 police, and 48 wounded, 10 of them police.

Two car bombs struck near a government building in Sadr City, a vast, poor Shi'ite swathe of Baghdad, and in the mainly Shi'ite area of Hussainiya on the outskirts of the capital, killing a total of 11 people and wounding 73, police said.

In Kirkuk, five car bombs killed six people and wounded 17, while explosions and gun attacks on security checkpoints around the restive province of Diyala killed six people, including four soldiers and policemen, and wounded 30, police sources said.

Two car bombs parked near a military checkpoint killed five people and wounded 22 in the town of Khan Bani Saad, 30 km (20 miles) northeast of Baghdad, police sources said. Gunmen killed four soldiers and wounded five in an attack on a checkpoint in the town of Udhaim, 90 km north of the capital, they said.

The orchestrated spate of attacks followed car bombs on Sunday in two towns south of Baghdad and in the Shi'ite shrine city of Najaf that killed 20 people and wounded 80.

Last month was one of the bloodiest since the U.S. withdrawal, with at least 237 people killed and 603 wounded.

Iraq, whose huge desert province of Anbar, a Sunni heartland, borders Syria, is nervous about the impact of the conflict raging in its neighbor, scene of a Sunni-led revolt against President Bashar al-Assad's Alawite-dominated rule.

Iraq attacks kill 60, raise sectarian fears

Editor's Note:  Notice the generic label, "Al Qaeda"

Reuters

(Reuters) - Simultaneous early morning attacks on mostly Shi'ite targets across Iraq killed at least 60 people and wounded dozens on Thursday in one of the bloodiest days of violence since U.S. troops pulled out in mid-December.

The attacks that appeared to pitch al Qaeda-linked Sunni Muslim insurgents against Shi'ites raised fears of a return to the widespread sectarian carnage that tore Iraq apart and cost thousands of lives in 2006 and 2007.

The violence breaks weeks of relative calm as Shi'ite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki and Sunni leaders have sought to resolve a political crisis that threatened to unravel their power-sharing agreement following the U.S. withdrawal.

At least 32 people were killed in blasts in Baghdad where 10 explosions tore through mainly Shi'ite neighbourhoods during rush hour and other attacks targeted police patrols, commuters and crowds gathered in shopping areas.

"We were sitting at a restaurant having soup for breakfast when the bomb exploded. I lost consciousness and then saw smoke and dust when I came to. I saw people and body parts everywhere," police officer Ahmed Kadhim told Reuters.

Kadhim suffered shrapnel wounds to his left leg and back when a car bomb exploded near a restaurant killing six people and wounding 18 in Baghdad's northern Kadhimiya district.
The interior ministry blamed al Qaeda and affiliated armed groups for the attacks it said were an attempt to show that Iraq's security situation remained unstable.

The blasts hit just weeks before Baghdad plans to host an Arab League summit, which has been postponed because of regional turmoil and acrimony between Iraq's Shi'ite-led government and some Sunni Gulf states.

Holding a successful summit at the end of March would help Iraq restore its place in the Arab World since the U.S. withdrawal and help allay Sunni Gulf States worries over Iran's influence over Iraq's Shi'ite government.

"The attacks aimed to spark sectarian strife among the Iraqi people, and to prevent the Arab League meeting from being held," Parliament Speaker Osama al-Nujaifi said.

DOZENS OF BLASTS

More than a dozen blasts and attacks hit other cities across Iraq from Mosul in the north to Hilla, south of Baghdad, many of them targeting police.

The violence was aimed at Shi'ite neighbourhoods but also against security forces, a frequent target of Sunni insurgents. Iraqi officials had predicted such groups would try to stir sectarian tensions with attacks after American forces went home.

While violence has ebbed since the height of the war, Sunni insurgents affiliated to al Qaeda are still capable of large-scale assaults. Some rival Shi'ite militias have said they will cease fighting since the U.S. withdrawal.

Islamic State of Iraq, an umbrella group for al Qaeda-linked insurgents in Iraq, has claimed responsibility for recent large attacks on the capital, including a December 22 wave of bombings that killed at least 71 people.

In Thursday's violence, one car bomb in the capital killed at least nine people and wounded 27 in the upmarket Karrada neighbourhood, hurling shrapnel into the next street and blowing out glass from nearby buildings.

Witnesses saw at four wrecked cars full of shrapnel and bloodied seats near an ice-cream shop at the site of another blast.

In at least three Shi'ite neighbourhoods in Baghdad, nine policemen were killed, and in the capital's northwestern Kadhimiya district, a car bomb killed six people when it struck a street lined with restaurants.

In the biggest attack outside the capital, a car bomb killed seven people and wounded 33 in the town of Balad, north of Baghdad.

Iraq's political crisis erupted after Maliki moved against two senior members of the Sunni-backed Iraqiya political bloc shortly after the U.S. troop withdrawal in December, prompting a walkout by Iraqiya lawmakers that lasted until late January.

Tensions eased as Sunni, Shi'ite and Kurdish blocs tried to negotiate an end to the crisis. But a week ago a panel of judges detailed 150 attacks they said were carried out by death squads under Sunni Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi's command. Maliki sought Hashemi's arrest in December.

Hashemi, who has taken refuge in the autonomous region of Kurdistan, has denied accusations made against him, dismissing them as part of a plot to destroy Maliki's opponents.

The crisis was followed by a wave of attacks in December and January on Shi'ite neighbourhoods, including a suicide bombing on a Shi'ite funeral procession that killed 31 in Baghdad and an attack on Shi'ite pilgrims that left 53 dead in Basra.

Violence had ebbed until Sunday when a suicide car bomber killed 19 people in an attack on a Baghdad police academy.

(Writing by Yara Bayoumy and Francois Murphy; Editing by Patrick Markey and Giles Elgood)

Iraq’s biggest oil refinery shut down after attack

International Business Times

Gunmen have attacked and bombed Iraq's largest oil refinery, Baiji, shutting down the facility and killing at least five employees.

"Armed men entered the refinery and shot dead two of the engineers," said Abdul Qader al-Saab, the facility's deputy chief.

"Then they detonated bombs at one unit, the al-Shamal unit, of the refinery, which represents 25 percent of the refinery's production. In the morning, we came to put out the fire, which erupted as a result of the bombs."

Baiji, located in Salaheddin province north of Baghdad, was badly damaged by a fire. It was one of Iraq’s three most important refineries and at one time was controlled by Sunni insurgents to finance their activities. It produced about 150,000 barrels of oil per day (other sources its capacity is almost double that figure).

Analysts said that while attacks on pipelines are common, targeting a refinery itself is rare.

Ahmed al-Jubouri, the governor of Salaheddin province, told Reuters "it's a big loss for the whole country. All Iraqi cities depend on its production.".
Officials said the damage was severe and would take at least two weeks to repair.

The attack followed days of protests across Iraq against the corruption of the current regime of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and its perceived failure to provide jobs and basic services, including fuel.

Another oil refinery, in Samawa in southern Iraq was also shut down by fire, but reports indicate this was not due to a terrorist attack.
“Yet another concern is the attack's impact on the country's oil industry as a whole, which only recently has begun to spring back to life. The government has been trying to lure foreign investors to build four new refineries, without much success" said Ruba Husari, editor of Iraq Oil Forum, according to the Washington Post. "It has been difficult to get international companies to come to construct these. Now you have another element of risk."