surge update - At Least 60 More Are Killed in Attacks in Baghdad

[spanone]

BAGHDAD — A deadly outburst of violence appears to be overwhelming Iraq’s police and military forces as American troops hand over greater control of cities across the country to them. On Friday, twin suicide bombings killed at least 60 people outside Baghdad’s most revered Shiite shrine, pushing the death toll in one 24-hour period to nearly 150.

Like many recent attacks, the bombings appeared intended to inflame sectarian tensions, to weaken Iraq’s security forces and to discredit its government.

The bombings on Friday ominously echoed attacks like the one at a Shiite shrine in Samarra in February 2006 that unleashed a wave of sectarian bloodshed and pushed the country toward civil war.

The latest bombings, there have been at least 18 major attacks so far this month, so far have not prompted retaliatory attacks, but they have strained what remains a fragile, deeply divided society.

Two suicide bombers struck within five minutes of each other on streets leading to the shrine of Imam Musa al-Kadhim and his grandson. One of the attacks, and perhaps both, were carried out by women, witnesses said.

Nearly half of those killed were Iranians making a pilgrimage to the shrine, a golden-domed landmark in the predominately Shiite Kadhimiya neighborhood of Baghdad that is devoted to 2 of the 12 imams of Shiite Islam. At least 125 people were wounded, many of them also Iranians.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/25/world/middleeast/25iraq.html?hp=&pagewanted=print

[HughMoran]

1. "as American troops hand over greater control of cities across the country"

"surge update"

What?

[malaise]

2. I've been wearing my tin foil hat again

Obama better clean up Bushco's mess and kick out those getting rich on the US presence or he'll never leave Iraq.

[customerserviceguy]

3. As soon as we're gone

they'll begin in earnest to kill each other again. Not that that's a reason for staying, we cannot babysit the Sunni-Shiite fight forever, especially not at a loss of about one American servicemember a day, but this is just the reality.

The surge was just a time for both sides to lay low, and re-arm. Get out people out now, and let the parties there solve their 1200 year old feud.