The Common Ills: Violence slams Iraq

Monday, February 17, 2014

Violence slams Iraq

At least 40 people have been reported dead from violence in Iraq today, another sixty-nine injured. But AFP embarrasses itself by insisting it was 22.

Here's some of today's reported dead.

National Iraqi News Agency reports 1 police member was shot dead in southern Baghdad (Dora district), a roadside bombing south of Mosul left "two technicians of the North Oil Company" wounded, 1 person was shot dead in Tarmiya, 2 eastern Baghdad car bombings (Ur district) left 11 people dead and forty injured, an al Qayyarah roadside bombing claimed the lives of 2 adults and 1 child and left four police injured, a Wadi Hajar battle left 1 police member dead and another injured, a Riyadh battle left 3 Iraqi soldiers dead and five more injured, a south of Mosul roadside bombing left 1 child dead and the mother injured, "the Mukhtar of Besrj villaged Ahmed al-Abded" was shot dead in Besrj village, a Baghdad car bombing (al-Ghazaliya area) left 1 person dead and four more injured, a Ramadi car bombing left 3 police dead and six more injured, an Aljnobh roadside bombing claimed the lives of 2 Iraqi soldiers with three more injured, the Ministry of the Interior announced 10 suspects were killed by security forces in Anbar, and, dropping back to late last night, 2 Sahwa were shot dead in Shamsiah Village.

And the number's even higher. Duraid Adnan (New York Times) reports that Baghdad had more bombings than just in Ur: a Karrada car bombing left 9 dead (thirty injured), a Ghazaliya bombing left 4 dead (fifteen injured), an al -Amil bombing left 2 dead (and nine injured).

So that's at least 55 reported dead and one-hundred-and-twenty-three injured.

AFP ends their own bad summary with this, "Attacks and clashes have killed more than 460 people so far this month and over 1,450 since the start of the year, according to AFP figures based on security and medical sources." So "clashes" do count?

Just not the people reported killed in them? This isn't 'late breaking news' makes the count wrong -- this is they refuse to include the announcements of the government in the death toll. But, goodness, weren't they happy to present the government announcement last week when it allowed them to chuckle over deaths?

A lot goes unreported. The push in southern Iraq for semi-autonomy, for example.

But it's not just there. While Nouri's declared war on Anbar Province, he's a left a lot of people noticing how little he does. Rudaw reports Nineveh Province is talking semi-autonomy:

Iraq's Sunni Nineveh province says it is considering autonomy from the Shiite-led government in Baghdad and trying to work out territorial divisions with the autonomous Kurdistan Region. As violence in Iraq continues to worsen, and the autonomous Kurdistan Region remains Iraq’s only stable and economically prosperous portion, other regions in the country have been considering different models of self-administration.
"The provincial administration has started negotiation with the Kurdistan Region for implementing the project of turning Nineveh into an autonomous region," said Nineveh governor Athil Nujaif.
"It's aimed at improving the situation of Nineveh administratively and offering services, not for sectarian separation," he added.

Atheel al-Nujaifi is a political rival of Nouri al-Maliki -- Atheel's brother is Speaker of Parliament Osama al-Nujaifi.

The Kurds and Baghdad are still at odds over the oil. We'll go into it in today's snapshot.

Isaiah's latest comic goes up in a moment.