How’s that Surge Workin’?
Posted on | March 30, 2007
More than a hundred people died violently today in and near Baghdad:
Both areas — a bazaar in the eastern Baghdad neighborhood of Shaab and the farming town of Khalis in Diyala province — are populated predominantly by Shiites, and Iraqi government officials quickly blamed the Sunni insurgent group al-Qaeda in Iraq. The attacks followed two violent days of bombings and reprisal killings in the northern city of Tall Afar and threatened to increase the likelihood of a resurgence of open sectarian warfare despite the heightened U.S. military presence in Iraq.
The bombing in Shaab, which police said killed at least 60 people, took aim at the six-week-old Baghdad security plan, under which U.S. and Iraqi officials have sought to protect public marketplaces from such catastrophic attacks…
But Thursday evening, as shoppers stocked up on supplies before the weekend, at least one suicide bomber sneaked into the area and detonated explosives amid the bustling crowd of the Shalal market. Area residents said the market is barricaded on both ends to prevent vehicles from entering, but the attacker walked in wearing an explosives belt, police said. Soldiers from the brigade [2nd Brigade of the 82nd Airborne Division] rushed to the warren of stalls to assist in recovery, U.S. military officials said…
More violence in Iraq killed at least 20 others Thursday, and 13 dead bodies were found scattered around Baghdad in the past day, Interior Ministry officials said.
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