Weekly Security Update 02 - 09 October 2013

Earlier on Saturday, a suicide bomber blew himself up inside a cafe in the mainly Shi'ite town of Balad, 80 km north of Baghdad, killing 12 people (the cafe was targeted in an almost identical bombing 40 days ago) and in Baghdad on the same day two suicide bombers targeted Shi'ite Muslims, killing 60 people on the eve of the anniversary of one of their imams' deaths.  An almost simultaneous attack by another suicide bomber at a checkpoint killed a further 48 Shi'ite pilgrims on their way to visit a shrine in the Kadhimiya district resulting the Shia community losing over a 100 of its members in a day.

Over the weekend the violence appeared to ebb and flow up and down the Tigris River Valley between Baghdad and Mosul.  Sunday 06 Oct saw a particularly tragic attack take place in a town away from Mosul as a suicide bomber targeted a Sunday school killing 14 children and their headmaster.  The attack at the primary school followed a suicide bombing minutes earlier on a police station in the same town, Tel Afar, about 70 km northwest of Mosul city, where Sunni Islamist and other insurgents have a foothold and where the majority of residents are from Iraq's Shi'ite Turkmen minority, whom have become a focal point for Sunni insurgent killings and kidnappings.

Baghdad also came under attack through Sunday and Monday.  On Sunday a suicide bomber attacked a group of Shi'ite pilgrims on their way to visit a shrine in Baghdad, killing 14 people and wounding more than 30 and on Monday at least 10 bombs exploded across Baghdad, killing a further 38 people in what was a gruesome week for the Shia community.  Eight of the 10 blasts in Baghdad were in mainly Shi'ite districts, but there was also an explosion in a mixed neighbourhood and another in the predominantly Sunni Muslim neighbourhood of Doura, which was most likely some form of revenge attack.  In the deadliest attack, a parked car blew up in a commercial street in Husseiniya, killing five people.

Separately, four members of a government-backed Sunni militia were killed in a roadside bombing in northern Baghdad earlier on Monday, and six people including a police officer died in fighting between militants and Special Forces in Hilla, 100 km south of the capital.