Suicide attacks pick up as Iraqis begin voting

Suicide bombers have struck in central Iraq for the second day straight as Iraqis prepare to go to the polls to choose their representatives in the March 7 parliamentary election.

Two suicide bombers killed 14 Iraqis in Baghdad today, and 31 were killed in suicide bombings yesterday in the city of Baqubah. The attacks are the first indication of a major push by al Qaeda in Iraq since late January and early February, when the group’s suicide bombers carried out a series of strikes against Shia pilgrims in Baghdad in regions south of the capital that killed 178 Iraqis and wounded hundreds more.

Today’s attacks were carried out at two polling sites in Baghdad. Seven soldiers were killed after a suicide bomber detonated his vest at a polling station that was opened to allow the soldiers to vote early. Another seven civilians were killed at a separate polling station that had yet to be opened.

Yesterday, three suicide bombers attacked the Iraqi police in the city of Baqubah in Diyala province. Two suicide bombers rammed their cars packed with explosives into a police headquarters in the province capital. The third suicide bomber struck at a local hospital as casualties from the initial attack arrived. Thirty-one Iraqis were killed and 48 more were wounded in the coordinated attacks.

While no group has claimed credit for the attacks, al Qaeda has done so for prior attacks. Al Qaeda and Ansar al Islam (formerly Ansar al Sunnah), are the two groups that use suicide bombings in Iraq.

US and Iraqi officials have warned that al Qaeda and allied terrorist and insurgent groups would step up attacks in Iraq in an effort to derail the March 7 election. Most of the recent attacks have consisted of assassination attempts against candidates and poll workers, an Iraqi politician said.

“The murders and attacks that we’ve seen lately targeted not only candidates, but also people working in the election campaign,” Khaled al Asadi, a politician aligned with Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki told AKI.

Insurgents and political rivals resorting to violence have no shortage of election-related targets in Iraq. There are 6,172 candidates attempting to win the 325 seats in Iraq’s parliament, and more than 10,000 polling stations throughout Iraq, according to a study by The Institute for the Study of War.

Despite the recent uptick in deaths in Iraq, the violence in the country is still well below that seen during the height of the al Qaeda and Mahdi Army-fueled sectarian attacks that pushed Iraq to the brink of civil war in 2006. Attacks in Iraq are at an all-time low since the insurgency began during the summer of 2003. During 2006, attacks reached a height of 220 a month; now they are down to 20 attacks a month.

The US and the Iraqi government turned the tide in 2007 with a change in counterinsurgency strategy that included surging the force with 30,000 additional US troops; getting them off the bases to battle terrorist and insurgent groups; partnering with the nascent Iraqi Army and police; dramatically increasing the Iraqi forces; and establishing Awakening committees, which were successful in securing Anbar province in early 2007.

By the summer of 2009, the Iraqi Security Forces had taken over security in Iraq’s major cities, while US forces had begun the drawdown with an ultimate goal of 50,000 troops in Iraq by Aug. 1, 2010. There are currently more than 96,000 US troops in Iraq, while the Iraqi ministries of Defense and Interior have more than 850,000 Iraqis in service.

Bill Roggio is a Senior Fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and the Editor of FDD's Long War Journal.

Tags: Iraq