Sectarian violence kills about 60 in Iraq
BAGHAD, Iraq – Suicide bombers struck Tuesday across the street from the heavily guarded Green Zone, killing up to 16 people, the deadliest attack in a wave of bombings and shootings that threatened to shatter confidence in Iraq’s new government.
In all, about 60 people died in more than a dozen bombings, shootings and ambushes, mostly in the Baghdad area, according to police reports. The dead included 10 Shiites slain by gunmen who fired on their bus as it left the capital for a funeral in southern Iraq, police said.
Lawmakers summoned the defense and interior ministers to explain the failure of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s security plan for the capital, where most of the recent violence has occurred.
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Mindless slaughter a calculated tactic
IRAQ’S bloodshed is rarely the result of militant groups engaged in mindless sectarian slaughter in the name of religion. Violence such as Sunday’s is carefully planned, and calculated to achieve a political objective.
If the groups responsible can trigger a continuous cycle of tit-for-tat violence, they hope to create a broader civil war and make Iraq ungovernable. The newly formed, US-backed Government in Baghdad would crumble. The fledgling security forces would fall apart.
Western public opinion would exert pressure on American, British and other leaders to bring their forces home. Extremist Sunni and Shia leaders would be free to carve out their own fiefdoms, much as Lebanon’s warlords did three decades ago.
That outcome would never be allowed.