With the central and southern belts having absorbed the majority of violence during a particularly grizzly week Tuesday 21 May saw a shift north on a day where the body count for the week went past 300 as another 40 people were killed in bombings and clashes that erupted from Baghdad to Kirkuk and Diyala.
The biggest incidents occurred in and around Baghdad and Abu Ghraib. A car bomb exploded near a Sunni mosque in the Abu Ghraib area of western Baghdad killing 11 people and wounding 21, police and medics said and another bomb outside a cafe in the Doura district of southern Baghdad killed six more and wounded 18.
Further north in Diyala province northeast of the capital, at least eight people, including two policemen, were killed in bombs and skirmishes, and in Kanaan, also to the northeast, two roadside bombs detonated in quick succession claiming three lives and after a period of relative calm in the north of the country Kirkuk once again also fell victim to more deadly attacks as three roadside bombs exploded near a livestock market killing six people and numerous livestock.
As many international commentators worry that Iraq is frantically slipping toward catastrophic sectarian confrontation, similar to the 2006 – 2007 civil war, there remains little security or political traction to deal with the spiraling levels of violence. If there are any positives to be taken away from the horrific scenes of this past week it would only be that despite all the violence Iraq is well below the levels of violence seen at the height of the 2006-2007 civil war, when tens of thousands were killed.
With security forces spread thin and little political purchase much remains in the hands of the religious and tribal leaders to seek and promote a solution to end the worst violence before Iraq descends further into the abyss.
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