Suicide, car bombings kill 73 Iraqis

Iraqis suffered another day of coordinated attacks that included a suicide bomber and bombs planted on vehicles in Shia neighborhoods in Baghdad and Nassiriyah. From Reuters:

Bomb attacks in mainly Shi’ite Muslim areas of Iraq killed at least 73 people and wounded scores on Thursday, police and hospital sources said, raising fears of an increase in sectarian strife.

The biggest attack was beside a police checkpoint west of Nassiriya in the south, where a suicide bomber targeting Shi’ite pilgrims killed 44 people and wounded 81, Sajjad al-Asadi, head of the provincial security committee in Nassiriya, told Reuters…

Earlier on Thursday, a bomb planted on a parked motorcycle and another roadside explosive device killed at least 10 people and wounded 37 in Sadr City, a slum district in northeast Baghdad, police and hospital sources said…

Two car bombs in Baghdad’s northwestern Kadhimiya district killed at least 15 people and wounded 32, police and hospital sources said.

The suicide attack was likely carried out by al Qaeda in Iraq or Ansar al Islam (Ansar al Sunnah), as both groups use this tactic.

The last major coordinated attack took place two weeks ago, on Dec. 22, 2011, just as Iraq was entering the current political crisis. The attack was similar, with one major suicide bombing and a series of car bombings throughout Baghdad. Sixty-three Iraqis were killed. Al Qaeda in Iraq claimed it carried out the Dec. 22 attacks.

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

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Tags: Al Qaeda in Iraq, Ansar al Islam, Iraq