Car bombs mainly targeting Shiite-majority areas of Iraq killed at least 48 people yesterday, security and medical officials said, taking this month’s death toll to more than 780.
More than 3,000 people have been killed in violence since the beginning of the year, according to Agence France-Presse figures based on security and medical sources — a surge in unrest that the Iraqi government has so far failed to stem.
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.
Photo: AFP
Two more car bombs exploded in Kut, while two hit Samawa and another detonated in Basra, all south of Baghdad.
The attacks wounded at least 226 people.
The violence yesterday came a day after attacks killed 14 people, among them nine Kurdish police who died in a suicide bombing in the northern town of Tuz Khurmatu.
Militants have carried out two highly coordinated operations in recent days, highlighting both their growing reach and the rapidly declining security situation.
Late on Wednesday, about 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 Iraq in 2006 to 2007, when thousands of people were killed because of their religious affiliation or forced to abandon their homes under threat of death.
Lingering tensions between Sunnis and Shiites have been inflamed by persistent violence in Iraq and the civil war in neighboring Syria, and there are growing fears that the country is slipping back toward all-out sectarian conflict.
On the night of July 21, militants launched brazen assaults on Abu Ghraib and Taji prisons, sparking clashes that lasted for about 10 hours.
At least 500 prisoners, including senior al-Qaeda members, escaped during the unrest, while at least 20 security forces members and 21 inmates were killed.
Iraq has faced years of attacks by militants, but analysts say widespread discontent among members of its Sunni Arab minority that the government has failed to address has fueled the surge this year.
Iraq’s Sunni Arabs accuse the Shiite-led government of marginalizing and targeting their community, including through unwarranted arrests and terrorism charges.
Demonstrations broke out in Sunni-majority areas at the end of last year and are still ongoing.
In addition to the major problems with security, the government in Baghdad is failing to provide adequate basic services such as electricity and clean water, while corruption is widespread.
Political squabbling has further paralyzed the government, which has passed almost no major legislation in years.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not