Saturday, March 1, 2014

Motorbike blast kills 52 in Iraq

Full blown Shia on Sunni war is at the brink in Iraq - this latest wave of massacres of Shias might just put it over the edge.

Nice job, Barry.

The story comes from The Telegraph.


Motorbike blast kills 52 in Iraq


At least 52 people were killed Wednesday as a motorcycle rigged with explosives detonated in Baghdad's Sadr City and militants targeted mostly Shi'ite neighbourhoods around the country.

The motorcycle was parked in a second-hand bike market in the Shi'ite Muslim neighbourhood that was filled with people, mostly young men, when it exploded late Thursday afternoon, killing 31 and wounding 51 others, Iraqi medical and police sources said.

Blood covered the ground, storefront windows were shattered and shoes and motorcycle parts were strewn around the market, according to a Reuters correspondent at the scene. Dozens of people were screaming for information about their relatives.

A wounded man, who identified himself as Ahmed, rested in a nearby hospital. "I was about to leave the market when a huge explosion happened," Ahmed said. "I was hit in my face and my hands and when I got up, everyone was screaming and running towards me away from the blast."

It was not clear who was behind the bombing but violence against Shi'ites is often blamed on the Sunni Muslim Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), an al Qaeda-linked group.

Baghdad has been hit by wave after wave of bombings since April as the precarious peace enjoyed since the end of Iraq's sectarian war in 2008 has unravelled.

Explosives and suicide bombs have been favoured by Sunni extremists as they seek to target Shi'ite areas and intimidate their own religious community.

The latest bloodshed comes as Prime Minister Nouri Maliki wages a war against Sunni militants in western Anbar province neighbouring Syria, and has become a base for ISIL. Despite the offensive, the pace of attacks around the country goes on undiminished.

Elsewhere four people died from bombs on two different minibuses in Shi'ite sections of Baghdad.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Comments? Well you brought Al-Qaeda to Iraq. I don't recall such daily violence.

You did us a favor by removing Saddam. But then nothing much else.

Why? What happened with the PRT's? They were meant to stem this kind of violence.

Why did your nation building go so wrong?

Why couldn't you replicate The Marshall Plan? Ask yourself that.

Lt. Colonel(retired) Reza Pejman

The Duhnmharu said...

It would appear dear Col that a marshall plan would be doomed to failure in teh Muslim world. That requires cooperation of all parties. There are too many factions each armed to the teeth, pushing their own brand of Islam which as I said before is a doctrine not a religion. This violence called Islam is a cancer that causes these groups to fight because their brand of Islam is better than the other guys. Iraqis had a real chance at making a democracy, but the usual crimes took on different patterns and returned. Corruption and My religion is better than yours etc. Muslims can and will never unite. It appears they are proving me correct. Their pattern of behavior needs to change before a marshal plan could ever work.

Anonymous said...

Maybe your plan was flawed and inadequate to begin with. Maybe you underestimated the resources needed.

If it's such a Muslim thing. Why did your nation building fail in Vietnam?

You have forgotten what soft power is. You have come to rely so much on your Military Industrial Complex that you equated tactical victories with strategic ones. Thus you thought it was all over the moment that statue came down. You became lax, you reduced your troop numbers when you should have increased them.

And the situation spiraled out of control.

You also repeated the mistake of your former enemies; fighting a two front war. Maybe with full mobilization and a war economy at home like in 1941 it was possible. But with an over stretched non-conscript military? And an oblivious home front largely unscathed by the conflict? That's not a recipe for success I'm afraid.

You are going to continue with these failures as long as you put too much emphasis on the opening aspect of a war instead of the aftermath of a tactical victory.

Shock and Awe has its merits. But also its limits. Try and move beyond that one good tactic, and develop a strategy.

Lt. Colonel(retired) Reza Pejman

The Duhnmharu said...

The one point you have made today which is not obfuscate4d is this. Since WW2 , the US has not been in any war to win it. When the attitude changes, so will the wars. As for losing it, Iraq refused under maliki to sign a staus of forces agreement which required US to remove all troops. maliki is now pleading for America to come back in. Faluja Sadr City and other places were hard won by Marines and US Troops eradicated teh terror problems so normal iraquis could get a life. M<aliki has nost all teh gains that had been made because he is an incompetent leader who like Karzai is corrupt. Its all about eh money and power if not one teh other. Just like teh 92 billion teh ayatollahs control in Iran. It all about money and power forget religion doesn't enter into it. But karzai like maliki may not sign teh agreement, and US troops will be gone and Taliban will be hunting his corrupt ass down. He too will wish he would have signed teh agreement. If not let him twist in teh wind.

Frankly in teh grans d scheme of things As lonk as Mooks are killing mooks and not killing infidels, I say let them have at it as long as they want. When they change targets and try us infidels, I say start a crusade and bottle the Mooks up for another thousand years