Winks Blog

Two Dozen Iraqis Killed as Security is Lifted

Good morning,

Back to business. Now that security from the elections have been lifted, martyrs and insurgents continue their rampage against the people of Iraq. Nobody is protected from the violence, except perhaps Dick Cheney as he secretly visited Iraq this day.

Here is an accounting of the killings via AP that has happened the last couple of days:

A string of attacks late Saturday and early Sunday pierced three days of relative calm that followed the country's first election for a full-term parliament.
The violence, including two suicide bombings, came after authorities eased stringent security measures put in place for the Dec. 15 parliamentary election and traffic returned to normal on the first full working day since the vote.
A ban on vehicles was lifted and the country's borders reopened Saturday, although the frontier with Syria remained closed. Authorities said it would reopen in a few days and did not give a reason for the delay.
In the northern city of Kirkuk, two relatives of an official of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, one of the two main Kurdish parties, were shot late Saturday as they walked near their house, police said. They were identified as Dhiab Hamad al-Hamdani and his son _ the uncle and nephew of party official Khodr Hassan al-Hamdani. The PUK is led by President Jalal Talabani.
In Baghdad on Sunday, a roadside bomb killed three police officers and wounded two. A similar attack Saturday night killed one policeman and wounded two in the northern town of Tuz, 68 miles south of Kirkuk, police said.
Unidentified gunmen killed a police officer and an Interior Ministry employee in separate attacks. Both were driving to work in western Baghdad when they were attacked. Four police officers were seriously injured when their squad car was sprayed with gunfire, and a tea seller was shot and killed in the same area.
A police captain and his driver were shot and killed in south Baghdad while two people, including an Interior Ministry driver, were killed in Baghdad's Shiite Sadr City slum.
A suicide bomber killed a police officer and injured two when he blew up a bomb in a minivan at a checkpoint along a Baghdad highway near the Interior Ministry.
A roadside bomb killed at least one woman and injured 11 in the northern Shiite neighborhood of Kazimiyah, police said.
Police also said a suicide bomber was killed in Amiriyah, about 25 miles west of Baghdad, when his explosives-laden belt prematurely detonated.
On Sunday, police found the body of a former Iraqi Army officer at a fuel station in central Baghdad. Abbas Abdullah Fadhl had been shot to death in his car, they said. Another unidentified man was found shot dead in east Baghdad.

Mr. Cheney made an unanounced surprise visit to Baghdad today. Even the Prime Minister did not know he was coming. Cheney knows that he is a huge target, so he had to sneak in there like a meek mouse to protect himself. He was extremely satisfied with the huge voter turnout, and is going to use that as justification for US Troop removal. What happens in the days, weeks and years to come will not deter this US regime from getting troops out of the country because the US public is creating much pressure to do so. The idea that "You broke it now you have to buy it", does not fare well with most here. So, the less we hear about the civil unrest and bloodshed, the better it will be to help them justify gradual withdrawl. Make no mistake, you can bet, that no matter how much bloodshed and violence remains in Iraq because of the US insurgency, the most of the US troops will be out of there before our next election. Many people here feel that major troop withdrawls will occur between 6 - 14 months from now.

Have a nice day.

posted by Wink @ 11:03 AM