A coordinated attack that involved at least one suicide bomber killed 35 people and wounded dozens more in a city north of Baghdad today.
The attack took place outside of the district center in the city of Taji. A car bomb was detonated outside an office that issues government identification cards, killing several people. One policeman said the car bomb was detonated be a suicide bomber; other reports indicate it was detonated remotely. As Iraqis moved in to recover the dead and wounded, a suicide bomber detonated his vest among the crowd. Thirty-five Iraqis were killed and 28 more were wounded in the attack.
While no group has claimed the attack, al Qaeda’s Islamic State of Iraq is the likely culprit. The group has claimed credit for recent suicide bombings that have targeted government buildings and provincial centers.
The last major al Qaeda attack took place on June 21, when a suicide assault team killed 25 Iraqis in a bombing at a checkpoint outside of a provincial center in Diwaniyah. Al Qaeda in Iraq also carried out four other major suicide attacks in June.
On June 14, the group also targeted a provincial center, but in Baqubah in Diyala province in the northeast. A suicide assault team was killed by Iraqi and US troops after the assault team had stormed the compound and taken hostages. Nine people, most of them members of the al Qaeda team, were killed. The Islamic State of Iraq, al Qaeda’s front group, claimed credit for the attack.
The day before, on June 13, a suicide bomber killed three policemen and a civilian in an attack outside a police headquarters in Basrah.
The two other major suicide attacks in June took place in Tikrit, Saddam Hussein’s home town. On June 6, a suicide bomber killed 12 Iraqis, including four Army officers and five soldiers, in an attack on the Presidential Palaces compound in Tikrit. On June 4, a suicide bomber killed four people, including two policemen, in an attack on a university hospital in the city. Also, 17 people were killed and more than 50 were wounded in a bombing outside a mosque in Tikrit that is visited by government officials. Al Qaeda in Iraq has also carried out a number of smaller suicide attacks during the months of June and July.
June also proved to be a very deadly month for US forces in Iraq. Fourteen US soldiers were killed during combat operations last month, the highest monthly number of combat fatalities for US combat troops in Iraq since 2008, according to the iCasualties website.
Many of the soldiers have been killed in areas where the Iranian-backed Shia groups such as the Hezbollah Brigades and the League of the Righteous (Asaib al Haq), as well as Muqtada al Sadr’s Promised Day Brigade, operate. The Promised Day Brigade has claimed to have carried out numerous attacks on US forces across the country.
The Iraqi military has launched an operation against the Iranian-backed groups in Maysan province, a stronghold of Sadr’s Mahdi Army and the Promised Day Brigade; the area has also served as a forward command center for Iran’s Ramazan Corps, the branch of the Qods force assigned to direct operations in Iraq.
Sources:
Twin suicide attacks kill 35 north of Baghdad, AFP
Iraq Hit by Deadly Bomb Attacks, The Wall Street Journal
