SIMULTANEOUS CAR bombs yesterday killed at least 31 people in Baghdad and wounded 111 in the first major attack since the end of the Muslim fasting month Ramadan.
Ten died and 10 were injured outside a restaurant and an office of a mobile phone firm in the largely Sunni residential district of Mansour, formerly the diplomatic enclave. Twenty-one Iraqis were killed and scores injured in Adan square in the Shia Kadamiyah district.
A father and son also died when a magnetic bomb exploded under their vehicle and mortar rounds were fired into the fortified Green Zone where parliament meets and where ministers have their offices and the US embassy is located. No casualties or damage were caused by the shells.
The attacks on both Sunni and Shia civilians were a departure from insurgents’ recent strategy of targeting military installations, police posts and government offices.
Attacks on civilians going about their daily rounds are designed to undermine public confidence in Iraq’s armed forces and police which have assumed full responsibility for security following the end of US combat operations in the country.
Yesterday’s toll was the highest since August 17th, when a suicide bomber killed 59 men at an army recruitment office. The number of fatalities in July and August were among the highest since 2008. Al-Qaeda has been blamed by the government for the bloodletting.
Analysts say al-Qaeda’s local franchise, decimated by joint US- Iraqi operations, have regrouped and found fresh recruits among Sunnis disillusioned with the country’s self-seeking and corrupt politicians.
Meanwhile, elements in Iraqiya, the party that won the largest number of seats in parliament, are seeking to form a coalition with the Supreme Iraqi Islamic Council (SIIC) and the Kurds. The current Shia vice president, Adel Abdel Mahdi of SIIC, would become prime minister, Iraqiya’s leader Ayad Allawi president and a Kurdish figure speaker of parliament.
Such a deal, could, however, prompt defections from secular Iraqiya by members opposed to a deal with the Shia sectarian SIIC and would exclude prime minister Nuri al-Maliki’s State of Law bloc and the faction loyal to radical Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.
Furthermore, an Iraqiya-SIIC-Kurdish coalition would take time to realise, taxing the patience of Iraqis who fear the political vacuum is feeding rising violence.
