Bombs targeting Shiite areas kill 54 in Baghdad
Print Edition
Attacks including car bombs mainly targeting Shiite-majority areas of Iraq killed at least 54 people yesterday, as the interior ministry warned of civil war.
With the latest violence, more than 790 people have been killed in attacks so far this month.
Yesterday, 11 car bombs hit nine different areas of Baghdad, seven of them Shiite-majority, while another exploded in Mahmudiyah to the south of the capital.
Two more car bombs exploded in Kut, while two hit Samawa and another detonated in Basra, all south of Baghdad. A roadside bomb also killed five policemen north of Tikrit, while a magnetic “sticky bomb” killed a police captain in Anbar province.
The attacks wounded a total of at least 232 people.
The interior ministry warned of the consequences of the bloodshed.
Iraq is faced with “open war waged by the forces of bloody sectarianism aiming to plunge the country into chaos and reproduce civil war,” the ministry said in a statement.
Iraq was racked by a bloody Sunni-Shiite sectarian conflict that peaked in 2006-2007, when thousands of people were killed because of their religion affiliation or forced to abandon their homes under threat of death.
The interior ministry also called for the “full support and cooperation of citizens with the security forces.”
One of the Baghdad bombings struck near a place where day laborers wait for work in the overwhelmingly Shiite area of Sadr City, killing five people and wounding 17.
Debris, including what appeared to be the remains of the vehicle that held the explosives, covered the street around the site of the blast.
The explosion also caused heavy damage to shops in the area, and the force of the blast smashed a white minibus, throwing it on its side.
Yesterday’s violence came a day after attacks killed 14 people, among them nine Kurdish policemen who died in a suicide bombing in the northern town of Tuz Khurmatu.
Militants carried out two highly coordinated operations in recent days, highlighting both their growing reach and the rapidly declining security situation.
Last week, some 150 militants attacked the northern town of Sulaiman Bek, drawing security forces away from the main highway in the area. About 40 militants then broke off, set up a checkpoint on the highway, and executed 14 Shiite truck drivers.
The highway killings were reminiscent of the darkest days of Sunni-Shiite sectarian bloodshed in 2006-2007.
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