Spate of attacks kills 107 across Iraq

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By BUSHRA JUHI and SINAN SALAHEDDIN | Associated Press:

A policeman stands guard at the site of a bomb attack in Kirkuk, 250km (155 miles) north of Baghdad July 23, 2012. The death toll in a string of bomb attacks in Iraq on Monday rose to 39, with at least 118 wounded, police and hospital sources said. The explosions included a car bomb and a suicide attack, in and around the Iraqi capital Baghdad, as well as four car bombs in the northern oil city of Kirkuk. REUTERS/Ako Rasheed (IRAQ - Tags: CIVIL UNREST MILITARY)

BAGHDAD (AP) — An onslaught of bombings and shootings killed 82 people across Iraq on Monday, officials said, in the nation's deadliest day so far this year.

The attacks come days after the leader of al-Qaida in Iraq warned in a statement that the militant group is reorganizing in areas from which it retreated before U.S. troops left the country last December.

Monday's violence in 12 Iraqi cities and towns appeared coordinated: The blasts all took place within a few hours of each other. They struck mostly at security forces and government officials — two of al-Qaida's favorite targets in Iraq.

"It was a thunderous explosion," said Mohammed Munim, 35, who was working at an Interior Ministry office that issues government ID cards to residents in Baghdad's Shiite Sadr City neighborhood when a car exploded outside. Sixteen people were killed in the single attack.

"The only thing I remember was the smoke and fire, which was everywhere, said Munim from his bed in the emergency room at Sadr City hospital. He was hit by shrapnel in his neck and back.

The worst attack happened in the town of Taji, about 20 kilometers (12 miles) north of the capital. Police said bombs planted around five houses in the Sunni town exploded an hour after dawn, killing 17. Police who rushed to the scene to help were hit by a suicide bomber in the crowd, killing another 11.

And in a brazen attack on Iraq's military, three carloads of gunmen pulled up at an army base near the northeast town of town of Udaim and started firing at forces. Thirteen soldiers were killed, and the gunmen escaped before they could be caught, two senior police officials said.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to release the information.

The overall toll made Monday the deadliest day in Iraq since U.S. troops left in mid-December. Before Monday, the deadliest day was Jan. 5, when a wave of bombings targeting Shiites killed 78 people in Baghdad and outside the southern city of Nasiriyah.

Last weekend, the leader of al-Qaida's affiliate in Iraq warned that the militant network is returning to strongholds from which it was driven from while the American military was here.

"The majority of the Sunnis in Iraq support al-Qaida and are waiting for its return," Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, head of the Islamic State of Iraq since 2010, said in the statement that was posted on a militant website.

Associated Press Writer Lara Jakes contributed to this report.

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By Kareem Raheem | Reuters:

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - At least 107 people were killed in bomb and gun attacks in Iraq on Monday, a day after 20 died in explosions, in a coordinated surge of violence against mostly Shi'ite Muslim targets.

The bloodshed, which coincided with an intensifying of the conflict in neighboring Syria, pointed up the deficiencies of the Iraqi security forces, which failed to prevent insurgents from striking in multiple locations across the country.

As well as the scores of deaths, at least 268 people were wounded by bombings and shootings in Shi'ite areas of Baghdad, the Shi'ite town of Taji to the north, the northern cities of Kirkuk and Mosul and many other places, hospital and police sources said, making it one of Iraq's bloodiest days in weeks.

No group has claimed responsibility for the wave of assaults but a senior Iraqi security official blamed the local wing of al Qaeda, made up of Sunni Muslim militants bitterly 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 attacks 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 increased since U.S. troops completed their withdrawal in December.

"I ask the government if security forces are capable of keeping control," a man named Ahmed Salim shouted angrily at the scene of a car bomb in Kirkuk. "With all these bloody bombs and innocent people killed, the government should reconsider its security plans," he told Reuters Television.

TRAIL OF DESTRUCTION

The security forces themselves were often the targets or victims of the assaults perpetrated across Iraq.

Gunmen using assault rifles and hand grenades killed at least 16 soldiers in an attack on an army post near Dhuluiya, 70 km (45 miles) north of Baghdad, police and army sources said.

In Taji, 20 km (12 miles) north of Baghdad, six explosions, including a car bombing, occurred 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, with 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 21 people and wounding 73, police said.

Nine people, including six soldiers, were killed in attacks in the northern city of Mosul, police and army sources 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.

Other deadly attacks occurred in the towns of Khan Bani Saad, Udhaim, Tuz Khurmato, Samarra and Dujail, all north of Baghdad, as well as in the southern city of Diwaniya.

The orchestrated spate of violence 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 in its neighbor where mainly Sunni rebels are fighting to end President Bashar al-Assad's Alawite-dominated rule.

Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis took refuge in Syria from bloodshed that lasted for years after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein. Last week the Iraqi government urged them to return home to escape the violence in Syria.

At least 80 buses laden with returning Iraqi refugees crossed the border last week, a U.N. spokeswoman said.

Iraq's Shi'ite-led government is also worried about the longer-term implications if Assad falls and Syria's majority Sunnis overthrow the supremacy of the president's Alawite sect, which traces its roots to Shi'ite Islam.

A sectarian struggle for control in post-Assad Syria could raise tensions across the border and damage Iraq's chances of overcoming its own formidable security and political challenges.

(Additional reporting by Ahmed Rasheed, writing by Alistair Lyon, editing by Mark Heinrich)