42 die in Iraqi bombings as ethnic violence flares

AT LEAST 42 people were killed and 80 wounded yesterday in the worst bomb attacks in Iraq since US forces completed their pull-back from urban areas on June 30th. The heaviest toll was taken by two suicide bombers who killed a police officer, his wife and child and 32 others in the northern town of Tal Afar near the restive city of Mosul.

In Baghdad’s Shia Sadr City suburb, six people were killed and 20 wounded by bombs hidden in rubbish piles in a popular market and in the central Karrada neighbourhood.

One civilian died when a roadside bomb was detonated as the convoy of the governor of the central bank drove past. The governor was unhurt.

Tal Afar, a city dominated by ethnic Turks (Turkmen), has suffered constant violence since the US occupation of Iraq in 2003.

Minority Shia Turkmen aligned themselves with the US-backed Shia-dominated government in Baghdad, while Sunni Arabs and other Turkmen took part in attacks on US forces and many were driven from the town.

Tal Afar is located in the province of Nineveh, where Kurds, Turkmen, and Arabs are locked in a bitter struggle for land and oil. In the provincial capital Mosul, a car bomb killed 12 people and wounded 33 others on Wednesday.

Sadr City markets are frequent sites of bombings. While attacks are routinely blamed on al-Qaeda, analysts hold that Sunnis are taking vengeance on Shias. Sunnis have been relegated to the margins of political life and cleansed from the capital and other formerly Sunni-majority cities.

Karrada, a pleasant shopping, hotel and restaurant district on the bank of the Tigris, is also targeted by bombers. Ministers and senior officials are prime targets for bombers determined to strike at the heart of the current regime.

Although the number of violent incidents dropped steeply in recent months, June was a particularly bloody month. At least 437 Iraqis died violently, the highest toll since July 2008.

While bombings and shootings create doubts about the ability of Iraq’s fledgling security forces to contain violence, Iraqis are seriously concerned that increasingly violent ethno-sectarian power struggles in the north and centre of the country could overwhelm the Shia-Kurdish regime put in place by the US.

University of Michigan Iraq expert Juan Cole warns that “the massive ethnic [and sectarian] cleansing in Iraq, under the nose of the US military forces, bodes ill for Iraq”.