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Khalil Al-A'nei / EPA
Iraqi firefighters work at the site of a bomb attack in Kirkuk, north of Baghdad, Iraq, Thursday.
More than 20 bombs hit cities and towns across Iraq Thursday, killing at least 36 and wounding more than 100, police and hospital sources said, raising fears of sectarian strife in a country keen to show it can now maintain security.
In Baghdad, three car bombs, two roadside bombs and one suicide car bomb hit mainly Shiite areas in what looked like coordinated attacks, killing 15 people and wounding 61, the sources said.
Two car bombs and three roadside bombs aimed at police and army patrols in the northern oil city of Kirkuk killed eight people and wounded 26, police and hospital sources said.
"I was trying to stop traffic to let a police patrol pass. When it passed, a car bomb exploded and I fell on the ground and police took me to the hospital," a policeman wounded in the face and chest told Reuters as doctors tended his wounds. He declined to be named.
Heightened tension between Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds in the fragile coalition government since U.S. troops withdrew in December has raised fears of a return to sectarian violence of the kind that pushed Iraq to the brink of civil war a few years ago.
The country is less violent than at the height of that conflict in 2006-07, but bombings and killings still happen daily, often aimed at Shiite areas and local security forces.
Kirkuk, home to Arabs, Kurds, Turkmen and others, is at the heart of a long-running dispute between the central government and the autonomous Kurdish region, which claims the city and the region's rich oil reserves.
The last 480 troops left Iraq in December 2011. NBC's Richard Engel reports.
The rift between Baghdad and the Kurds recently worsened when the Kurdistan Regional Government said it was halting oil exports because the central government was not paying oil firms operating in the north.
The government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki is anxious to show it can keep the country secure and attract investment following the withdrawal of U.S. troops.
Baghdad hosted an Arab League summit last month, its first for 20 years, and it passed off relatively peacefully amid a massive security lockdown.
Attacks in Iraq are mostly blamed on Sunni Arab insurgents who have refused to lay down arms after the withdrawal of U.S. forces in December.
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Why are they using bombs? Don't they have any regular criminals over there? Look at how effective Anders Behring Breivik was in Norway. Just go out and shoot up the neighborhood. He is getting a boat load of press right now. The bombers are dead and gone, he gets to prattle on for months.
They should make bombs illegal. It seems to be working for the US.
Yup, we sure stabilized that country. Saddam is laughing his ass off where ever he is.
Maya, Sadaam Hussein is six feet under the ground and completely skelotonized. Seriously doubt he is laughing his ass off.
He might be screaming in excruciating pain and agony while eternally burning in hell though but not laughing.
Just goes to show we should never have been involved in the middle East. They have been fighting amongst themselves for centuries, it's not going to stop over night, that's for sure.
It's just a matter of time until the situation deteriorates into civil war. Ultimately, the country will partitioned along the existing sectarian fault lines. We should have walked away from this 10 years ago. The outcome would have been the same, but we would have saved thousands of American lives, and countless billions of dollars. We should never have bought the Bush BS and left Saddam in alone.
Where are they putting all the people being wounded with these bombings every day? Shouldn't the hospitals be all filled to overflowing by now? Or do they just send them home with some aspirin and a bandaid?
In other news, the US did such a bad job with the illegal invasion of Iraq that the civilian population as a whole would still be better off under Saddam Hussein. Missions Accomplished!
I'm not so sure about that Sono, it may look that way to you but there was many victims during Saddam Hussein's dictatorship.
Quote:
Notice the Times said he murdered as many as a million people. That is the kind of reporting they used to justify the war.
The people of Iraq were far better off before Bush came up with "Iraqi Freedom". There were no bombs going off in Iraq, because Saddam had total control and maintained stability.
The whole war was for a new oil pipeline from Iraq to Israel, along the route of a former British pipeline. If completed, the pipeline would give Israel control of all the oil to Europe. Daddam wouyld not have permitted a pipeline to Israel, so he had to go, hence 9/11 and "Iraqi Freedom".
http://www.sptimes.com/2004/08/15/Columns/Israel_s_pipe_dream__.shtml
Once the Pentagon's choice to lead the "new" Iraq, Chalabi
promised to reopen an old British-built pipeline from Kirkuk in northern Iraq
to the Israeli port of Haifa. The plan impressed Richard Perle, Douglas Feith
and other conservatives influencing Bush administration policy toward Iraq in
the lead-up to last year's war.
The idea also drew enthusiastic response from Israel.
"The pipeline would be a dream," Yosef Paritzky, Israel's minister
of infrastructures, said as reported by Salon.com. "We'd have an
additional source of supply, and could even export some of the crude through
Haifa. But we'd need a treaty with Iraq . . . to build the pipeline."
Once Chalabi assumed a position of influence in the new Iraqi government,
Israel would get its treaty, the neoconservatives were assured. The pipeline
was by no means the only reason for going to war, but you can be sure it was one of the main reasons.
There is also an issue of a gas pipeline through Afghanistan to transport Israeli owned gas reserves from Turkmenistan to India, called the TAPI Pipeline.
Ralph, its not just the New York Times. And Saddam Hussein did undoubtedly massacred thousands of kurds. Now whether the war was justified or not, and whether or not it was our business to overthrow Saddam Hussein, is another story. Either way, whether the reports are exagerated or true or not, the U.S. will be blamed no matter what, and this is a lesson that we should remember in the future. This is why I don't think we should meddle at all in Syria, eventho I am sorry for all the victims, because whenever there is military operations, there is "collateral damage", no matter how careful they may be, and at the end the U.S. ends up with all the blame and the hate, and this even if "freedom fighters" or "rebels" actually asked for help against a dictator.
S.S.D.D.
I agree with Sono. Maybe they did not have a freedom to build bombs under Saddam, but they were not killing each other as they are now. Iraq is not ready for freedom American style.
Shut up already!We WON damn it we WON!!! Well at least the media is putting any doubt about it on page 4
I hope we learn from past mistakes and stop interjecting ourselves in other people's business. It should be obvious that not everyone wants to live as we do.
As long as there is politics, we will NOT learn from our mistakes. We will DEFEND them instead! Take trickle down economics for example- PLENTY of people still on board that derailed train, saying things are working just fine!
It was like Bush WANTED to screw things up. Nobody can have a perfect track record by accident, Apparently he was out to prove to his dad that he was indeed a useless wastrel
Leave the Iraquians alone they are just doing what they do best.
Well, numb nuts. WE put Saddam in power to use as a wedge against Iran. NOW Iran has an ALLY instead. As monumental a screw up as you can get
And WE go around doing what WE do best! LOSING WARS!
The FACT is this all happened on BUSH'S watch because he was asleep at at the wheel on 9/11, allowing Al Qaeda to GET LUCKY!! So he launched a Revenge War against people who had nothing to do with it to cover the fact, using blatant lies like WMD and spreading freedom and democracy as the flimsiest of excuses. And OF COURSE he screwed THAT up too
Obama looks like a frigging GENIUS having voted against getting into a war with Iraq. Just what the hell do we have to show fr it except a strengthened Iran?? And a big loan from China to pay off
As far as Afghanistan goes. our only legacy there will be thousands of one armed FORMER school girls running around Kabul for daring to diss the Taliban. And Karsai's head shipped to Crawford to make a point
Ever notice how the phrase " there will plenty of time for blame later" ALWAYS morphs into "why are you dwelling on the past?" It's how the SCREWUPS of the world escape to screw up yet another day
Me thinks
Chinny ( how Ms Cheaney says to pronounce their name)
Should recuperate in Iraq
I realize we are not perfect. but when we have a bombing like Okla.City deal. We all come together in hope them people get caught. We don't look at our own religion at that time.
The Iraq people need to be in a uproar on these bombings in Iraq. Turning in these thugs.If they won't, so be it. I really don't want to hear of problems you have, that you can easily solve. I wished our News Media feel this way, and quit telling us about Iraq's problems.
Will some Reporter please run a bit about WHY the terrorists are doing this?? 99 of 100 Americans have no idea why all this is going on. They just climb into their SUV and head to church with their 6 kids, whom they presume will not have any impact on the planet.
Couple things... first, the majority population in Iraq liked us over there. All you hear in the media is the bad stuff. We helped that country get a lot of essentials that we take for granted (like fresh water for instance). Second, if we didn't go over there, Saddam would still be in control. He would still be killing his own people and plotting attacks on us and our allies. Remember the slogan Don't F*** With U.S.??? Well they did, and we made them pay (i.e. Operation Shock and Awe & Operation Iraqi Freedom to name a couple). Saddam vastly underestimated our military. We should be proud of our troops and proud that we gave the majority of Iraqi's the freedom they so desperately wanted, and deserve.
u r aware
that snipers were out-lawed by Geneva Convention?
u never found out
that Saddam HAD NOTHING to do
with 9/11
Iraqi's ( Kurds who have the oil, Shiites who are the majority, and Sunnis who are the minority that ruled when Saddam was around)
are killing each other
and when the survivors get a chance
they will repay us
for the 150000 innocent civilians killed
maybe it will be our grand-children but Karma has a way of adjusting civilization
ok want to stop these towelhead screwballs...easy
everytime one of these braindead blows him or her self up great !(.only prob is others r involved)
so whats to be done ,... not only do they get thier 14 or 15 (whatever) virgins ...when they get to thier heaven they should be greet by the family ..how? have every member of the cluds family, i mean all of them, mom kids aunts,uncles gramppa .grandma neices.nephews everybody...publish thier address, pictures and plaster it all over the net, newspapers.radio,on walls i mean all over and lets c whats happens ....
General Blackjack Pershing and his men
Caught 10 Moslem terrorists in Haiti in 1917?
Who had killed some missionaries.
He slaughtered 9 of them and cut their bodies up
Put remains in trench and killed a couple of swine and threw their remains on top of the men
Let the one Moslem go who had witnessed it all.
No more problems for 50 years from Moslems.
I suggest we notify the Moslems that all of our bullets and bombs have been dipped in pig blood.