"Market, checkpoint among targets in Iraq; 23 dead; Insurgents step up attacks at time of political stalemate" by Hamza Hendawi, Associated Press | August 4, 2010
BAGHDAD — A car bomb ripped through an outdoor market yesterday in a mainly Shi’ite city of Iraq in the deadliest of a series of attacks that killed at least 23 people nationwide, officials said.
The blast about 5.30 p.m. in Kut, 100 miles southeast of Baghdad, targeted a popular outdoor market that sells food and clothes. It killed at least 15 people and wounded 60, according to police and health officials.
The attack came hours after suspected Al Qaeda militants killed five Iraqi soldiers at a western Baghdad checkpoint, planting the terror group’s black banner before fleeing. It was the second time in less than a week that Al Qaeda’s flag has appeared at the scene of an attack.
Must have been the ones that escaped from prison.
Related: Occupation Iraq: The Boys Are Back in Town
Flying right in your face, Americans.
The uptick in violence has raised concerns that insurgents are successfully taking advantage of the enduring political vacuum nearly five months after Iraq’s parliamentary elections failed to produce a clear winner. Politicians are still bickering over the formation of a new government, with the main hurdle being who should become the next prime minister.
The gunmen in Baghdad arrived in three cars and used pistols fitted with silencers in the assault in the mainly Sunni Mansour district, police and hospital officials said. The assailants, according to the officials, then planted the Al Qaeda banner on a pole next to the checkpoint....
The ministry official said the attack took place at 5 a.m. Witnesses who arrived at the scene shortly after the attack saw scattered bed sheets and pools of blood on a patch of grass near the checkpoint.
Security forces sealed off the area and searched for the attackers, carrying out extensive car searches and identity checks on passengers as well as pedestrians in the area, according to the officials.
On Thursday, in Baghdad’s Sunni Azamiyah district — a former Al Qaeda stronghold — suspected Al Qaeda militants stormed a checkpoint, killed 16 members of the security forces, and briefly planted their banner nearby before fleeing.
Al Qaeda’s front group, the Islamic State of Iraq, claimed responsibility for that attack in a statement posted yesterday on a militant website. There was no immediate claim for the Mansour attack.
A front for "Al-CIA-Duh" and everybody knows it.
Also yesterday, a roadside bomb targeting an army patrol in Baghdad’s Shi’ite district of Sadr City killed one soldier and wounded seven other people — four soldiers and three bystanders. In the capital’s eastern Ghadir district, a traffic policeman was killed when a bomb attached to his motorbike went off. A similar bomb attached to the car of a police major went off in Hurriyah neighborhood, seriously wounding him.
And in the nearby Ghazaliyah neighborhood, gunmen in a speeding car opened fire on a police checkpoint, wounding one policeman, police officials said. A late-night drive-by shooting, also in eastern Baghdad, killed a traffic policeman, city police said.
Violence has significantly dropped in Iraq since 2008 but attacks still occur daily, particularly in Baghdad, where Al Qaeda appears determined to show it is far from a spent force despite the killing and capture of hundreds of its members and leaders by Iraqi and US forces.Yeah, somehow the more we win the stronger they get.
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"Gunmen kill three in Baghdad heist" by Associated Press | August 6, 2010
BAGHDAD — Gunmen stormed a Baghdad money exchange and killed three people yesterday, the latest in a spate of brash daylight robberies of banks and financial centers in the Iraqi capital.
Insurgents said to be short on cash to fund their operations have been blamed for many of the heists. An Al Qaeda front group claimed responsibility for June strikes against the Central Bank of Iraq, the nation’s treasury, and the Trade Bank of Iraq, a state-run investment center.
I hope they took some money this time instead of just burning documents(?).
Related: Occupation Iraq: MSM's Bonnie and Clod
They can't be expecting us to believe the slop they are shoveling out?
Police said they did not know how much money was stolen in the heist.
If any.
Fleeing the scene, the gunmen also opened fire on a crowd of people who had rushed to the store in response to the shooting....
Violence across Iraq has decreased over the last couple of years, but daily attacks continue to take place. As violence has dropped, criminal activity has risen.
If it is not one thing it is another, 'eh, Iraqis?
Some liberation!
The Al Qaeda front group Islamic State of Iraq has gloated over its ease in penetrating security to pull off robberies.
The HALLMARK of INSIDE JOBS!
Also yesterday, a bomb attached to a Ramadi health department pickup truck exploded, killing the driver and wounding three bystanders, said city police and hospital officials.
I'm sorry, but no Muslim is putting a sticky-bomb on an ambulance.
These are GOVERNMENT INTELLIGENCE AGENCIES carrying out false flag attacks.
Earlier, police officials said three police officers were killed in drive-by shootings late Wednesday in western Baghdad, while gunmen stormed the house of a police officer, killing him, his wife, and a relative....
Yeah, Iraq is going great.
All officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.
Ever notice that is okay for agenda-pushing, war-promoting MSM but is some sort of fault of truth-telling bloggers who wish to protect themselves?
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Beep-beep!
"3 more traffic police slain in Baghdad" by Associated Press | August 7, 2010
BAGHDAD — A drive-by shooting and a bomb hidden in a motorcycle killed three traffic officers in Baghdad yesterday, bringing to eight the number of city police killed this week, officials said.
The killings suggested militants were targeting traffic police specifically for the first time since the insurgency began in 2003.
Iraqi security officials said militants from Al Qaeda in Iraq or affiliated groups are probably behind the slayings, viewing the mostly unarmed personnel as easy targets whose killing creates a sense of lawlessness in Iraq’s most heavily guarded city.
Yeah, "probably" behind them(?) -- and it's just a "sense" of lawlessness, not actual lawlessness. Don't believe your eyes and ears, believe the paper!
Two of the traffic police were killed yesterday in a drive-by shooting in a western Baghdad neighborhood in which gunmen used pistols fitted with silencers, police officials said.
Just REEKS of MOSSAD's MO!
A third was killed in central Baghdad by a bomb hidden in a parked motorcycle. The blast wounded four others, they said.
“We demand that we are given firearms to defend ourselves and our families,’’ said a 35-year-old traffic police officer in the central Karradah district. “Our life is difficult as it is without this on top.’’
Baghdad’s traffic police have one of the toughest jobs in the city. They are out every day during merciless 120-degree summer days on streets that have for years been among the world’s most dangerous.
Members of the force have been killed in crossfire or by bombings, but there has not previously been such a string of killings in which they were the intended victims.
The force does more than direct traffic or issuing tickets — it also brings order to a city struggling to regain normalcy after seven years of violence.
Yeah, this invasion thing worked out great!
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BAGHDAD — Two explosions killed at least 20 people and wounded as many as 100 yesterday evening in a downtown market in Basra, Iraq’s second-largest city, officials said.
It was the latest spate of attacks to come as all but 50,000 US troops head home by the end of the month.
The deputy provincial council chairman, Sheik Ahmed al-Sulayti, said at least 20 were killed by the blasts that came within minutes of each other at central Basra’s al-Ashaar market. He said an estimated 100 were injured.
But as is common in the immediate chaos after Iraq explosions, the death toll varied among officials. A senior commander in Basra’s security operations center said 43 people were killed and more than 200 wounded. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media. Another report had as many as 60 people dead.
Officials also differed over the cause of the blasts.
Two police officials said the blasts were caused by a roadside bomb and a car packed with explosives, they said.
Basra Police Chief Adil Daham said a malfunctioning power generator exploded at the same time as the reported bomb blasts.
A health official confirmed the casualties....
The explosions came at the end of a violent day that saw the killings of seven police officers across Iraq — the latest spate of attacks on security forces as all but 50,000 US military troops head home by the end of the month.
In the most dramatic strike, gunmen killed five police in an overnight shootout that lasted until dawn at a suspected bomb workshop in western Baghdad, security officials said. All officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media.
Police who were tipped off by a carjacking trailed the suspects to a house in the mostly Sunni neighborhood of Saidiya, where they came under fire from an unknown number of gunmen.
The shooting lasted for hours until daybreak, when the gunmen slipped away through a rear entrance, according to two Baghdad police officers and an Interior Ministry official.
What?
The "gunmen" GOT AWAY?
Two of the attackers were nabbed later yesterday while hiding in an orchard in a suburb north of Baghdad, officials said.
When police searched the house at the scene of the shootout, they found one gunman dead with a pistol at his side. Seven police and six residents, including two women and a 14-year boy, were also wounded in the shootout, the officials said.
Inside the house, police said they found a cache of bombs, chemicals, and other devices to make explosives. A minibus packed with explosives was also found in the garage, officials said.
Also before dawn yesterday, a police officer was shot to death at a checkpoint and two others wounded outside Fallujah, 40 miles from Baghdad,
In the nearby restive town of Karma, militants planted bombs outside the homes of three policemen and a member of the government-allied Awakening Council. Some 15 people were wounded, but there were no fatalities.--more--"
Just waiting for the forward signal.
