Despite a noticeable drop in attack tempo the week was by far free from incident. Monday 05 August saw Iraqi security forces kill 11 suspected militants and arrest dozens in a large military-led operation north of Baghdad in response to a deadly attack on a checkpoint last month when militants shot dead 14 Shi'ite tanker-drivers when checking their identity papers at a makeshift roadblock on the main route leading north from Baghdad.
The security sweep in Sulaman Pek, a town 160 km north of Baghdad turned from a routine stop and search into a full blown assault when some militants opened fire on officers inspecting homes, the sources said, adding that a number of the militants had been wearing suicide vests. Thousands of troops and several helicopters were subsequently deployed in what turned in to be one of the largest security operations this year.
In some respects this response is not surprising. Security has been ramped up across the country after a mass jailbreak near Baghdad last month when more than 500 convicts, including senior al Qaeda operatives, escaped after militants attacked two prisons.
Also on Monday, in Tal Afar, a town 420 km northwest of Baghdad, a bomb in a parked car killed four people and wounded seven and in the capital itself, a roadside bomb planted near a bakery killed four people and wounded 21 in an eastern district.
Tuesday 06 August saw a return to similar levels of violence experienced in previous weeks. A car bomb in a village outside the Iraqi capital Baghdad killed at least 10 people and wounded 15. The attack in Anbakiya, a mainly Shi'ite village around 65 km northeast of Baghdad, was the latest in a wave of bombings in and around the capital on Tuesday where Baghdad bore the brunt of a series of cars bombs.
Bombs targeting busy markets and shopping streets in and around Baghdad killed at least 51 people and wounded more than 100 in some of the most devastating violence in recent weeks.
The Interior Ministry, which has intimated that Iraq was facing an "open war" fuelled by sectarian violence, ramped up security in the capital this week by closing roads and deploying additional police and helicopters yet this, as so often is the case, did little to deter insurgent and militant groups.
Bombs went off in northern, eastern and southern districts of the capital in quick succession late on Tuesday, in areas crowded with shoppers and worshippers near a mosque. One of the attacks hit a square in central Baghdad, where a parked car bomb killed five and wounded 18. In a mainly Shi'ite neighborhood to the south, another car bomb exploded close to a shop selling ice cream after the evening breaking of the Ramadan fast.
The final sequence of attacks came toward the end of the day. In Nahrawan, 30 km southeast of Baghdad, militants targeted a crowded commercial street with a car bomb and further explosions rocked the northern fringes of the capital where a bomb exploded near a packed market.
Comments are closed.