Worst Violence Since U.S. Pullback Hits Iraq

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Bombs kill dozens in Iraq, Afghanistan (NBC Nightly News, July 9, 2009) —
In the worst violence since U.S. combat troops pulled back from urban areas in Iraq, nearly 60 people were killed in Baghdad on Thursday, July 9, 2009; and a truck filled with explosives blew up on an Afghan highway, killing 25 people. (00:37)

July 9, 2009

BAGHDAD — Bombs killed nearly 60 people in Iraq on Thursday in the worst violence since U.S. combat troops withdrew from urban areas last week. …

The carnage within Iraqi borders Thursday was a sign that insurgents remain intent on destabilizing Iraq as the United States shifts its focus to the war in Afghanistan. Attacks are down sharply from past years of war and militants have been driven from many strongholds, but they routinely inflict casualties in Baghdad and northern Iraq, a cauldron of ethnic and sectarian tension.

The most lethal attack Thursday was in the northern city of Tal Afar, where women sat in the street amid torn and bloodied bodies in the aftermath of suicide bombings, wailing and beating their chests in grief. Several men crouched and wept into their hands. Others rushed the wounded to ambulances; some used a bed sheet as a makeshift stretcher. …

The day’s violence began at 6:30 a.m., when a suicide bomber in a police uniform and carrying a radio and a pistol knocked on the door of an investigator in the anti-terrorism police force in Tal Afar. When the officer opened the door, the bomber detonated his explosive belt, killing the officer, his wife and son, said Maj. Gen. Khalid al-Hamadani, police chief of the northern Ninevah province.

As people gathered in the aftermath, another suicide bomber detonated his explosives belt, al-Hamadani said. The coordinated attack killed a total of 38 people and injured 66. Army Brig. Abdul-Rahman Abu Raghef said the first suicide bomber was a local resident who had been jailed for one year on suspicion of terrorism, but was released in an amnesty in June.

A day earlier, car bombs in two Shiite villages near Mosul, another northern Iraqi city, killed 16 civilians and injured more than two dozen. …

Insurgents also struck Baghdad on Thursday morning, detonating roadside bombs that killed 13 people and injured dozens. Eight of them died and 30 were injured in coordinated blasts near an outdoor market in the Shiite district of Sadr City, said Maj. Gen. Qassim al-Mousawi, spokesman for the city’s operations command center.

Hassan Abdullah, a vegetable salesman, said he heard the first blast and went to see what was happening when a second bomb hidden in trash about 100 yards away exploded. He was taken to a hospital with hand and leg injuries.

In the Karrada district of central Baghdad, one civilian died in a bomb attack on the convoy of Central Bank Gov. Sinan al-Shibibi, a police officer said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media. The governor was unharmed. …

Also Thursday, the U.S. military said it was investigating the death of a U.S. soldier who had been found “unresponsive” on a military base.

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Afghanistan briefing

U.K. troop losses in Afghanistan top Iraq (AP, July 10, 2009) — News of 15 battlefield deaths in 10 days has many Britons rethinking the country’s commitment to a conflict that seems no closer to a successful conclusion than when troops first arrived seven years ago. … Some 184 British troops have died in the war in Afghanistan, topping the 179 killed in the six-year military offensive in Iraq. … Full story

U.S. scrapping opium eradication policy in Afghanistan (AP, July 10, 2009) — Convinced that razing the cash crop grown by dirt-poor Afghan farmers is costing badly needed friends along the front lines of the fight against Taliban-led insurgents, U.S. authorities say they are all but abandoning the Bush-era policy of destroying drug crops. … Full story

Bombs kill 11 in Iraq, highlight security fears (AP, July 15, 2009) — A suicide bomber on Wednesday killed six people, including an Iraqi policeman, in an attack on security forces in Iraq’s western Anbar province, police said. The attack injured 19 others, including five police, said the officer in Ramadi, which is located some 70 miles west of Baghdad. … On Wednesday evening, a bombing in Baghdad’s Sadr City district killed five people and injured another 23. … Another bomb went off in the mostly Shiite district of Karradah in central Baghdad, wounding nine civilians. … Earlier, one person was killed and nine others wounded when a bomb exploded near an Internet cafe late Tuesday night in south Baghdad. … Full story