Iraq Follow-Up: 64 Dead in Bombings --- What is the Significance? (Cole)

Juan Cole writes:

On Wednesday, the Sunni Arab guerrilla insurgency of Iraq demonstrated it is alive and able to plan and carry out a nation-wide set of terrorist operations. The covert organization set off bombs in 13 cities, killing some 64 and wounding an estimated 274, and targeting mainly police stations and checkpoints. Indeed, the bloody events could be termed a one-day war on the Iraqi police.

In Baghdad, 7 police were killed and 26 wounded in the al-Qahirah district. In Kut, a car bomb struck the central police station, killing 15 and wounding 90. Among those killed was Gen. Walid Sami, the director of the police station, according to al-Hayat. Attacks in Karbala, Muqdadiya, Ramadi, Basra and other cities took smaller tolls but underlined that it is dangerous to be a policeman supporting the new, American-installed order in Iraq. In Mosul an army base was attacked, and in Baghdad a bomb was set off at the entrance to the Kadhemiya district that houses the Shiite shrine of the Seventh Imam, among the holiest sites for Shiites.

Iraq Breaking: Bombings Kill Dozens, Wound More than 200 Across Country

The ability of the Sunni Arab insurgents to strike in Kut and Basra is remarkable, given that both are in the Shiite zone. That they have recovered somewhat from their defeat in al-Anbar is made clear by the attacks in Ramadi and Fallujah.

But remember that although these bombings took a lot of lives and maimed a lot of people, they could have been carried out by a relatively small group of people, perhaps as few as 100. In addition, it is not clear what practical gain they could have realized from these attacks. Is anyone really not going to join the police because of a few bombings? Are the police really going to respond by giving the insurgents greater leeway to operate? Would the public really be intimidated? Can the bombings change the government or provoke a coup or revolution? No, no, no and no. Rather, the guerrillas are just making themselves even more hated and are provoking the army and police to improve their counter-terrorism capabilities.

The violence and lack of security, to be sure, is making Iraqis depressed, as Arwa Damon of CNN bravely describes it. But, again, it is hard to see a political gain for the guerrillas in creating such a dark mood in the public.

As for those who argue that the bombing campaign is a reason to halt or reverse the American military withdrawal, I don’t understand their argument. What practical thing could US troops do to stop random bombings in Kut and Muqdadiya? When they were in charge of Iraq, they were unable to stop bombing waves, so how would they do so now? They can support the Iraqi military in counter-terrorism, but they can do that whether the US is in Iraq in strength or not.

The Iraqi military has two major security challenges. One is to patrol the cities and keep them from being in the hands of militias and gangs. In that task, the new Iraqi military seems to perform just all right. They can patrol independently, and will stand and fight if they come under fire from a militia. But the other major task is counter-insurgency, and in that struggle the new Iraqi military is still not very good. They don’t do checkpoint well, and they have a superstitious belief in divining rods that are supposed to discover explosive in the trunk (they don’t). In any case, both these security tasks are best undertaken by Iraqis.

As I argued at CNN on Monday,, the very presence of the US troops in such large numbers may retard Iraqi political parties’ progress toward reconciliation. The Shiites and Kurds are made arrogant by their knowledge that the US will back them, and so haven’t tried very hard for reconciliation with the Sunni Arabs– the only thing that would end the insurgency.

The bombings are getting on the nerves of the Iraqi public in part because of the political uncertainty of the moment. The March 7 parliamentary elections produced a hung parliament (just as all the recent elections in the countries with a Westminster parliamentary system have produced hung parliaments). So far no party has put together a ruling coalition, leaving the state in the hands of a weak caretaker hold-over government.

It would be fairly easy to form a government if the Shiite religious parties formed a super-coalition, as they have in the past. But this time they are divided between the State of Law coalition of incumbent prime minister Nuri al-Maliki and the more fundamentalist parties grouped in the National Iraqi Alliance. The latter include the Sadr Bloc led by clergyman Muqtada al-Sadr, who is studying in the Iranian seminary city of Qom. Sadr does not like al-Maliki because the prime minister sent troops against his Mahdi Army militia in 2008. If Sadr would accept al-Maliki as PM for a second term, the government could be formed tomorrow.

Al-Sharq al-Awsat reports that Muqtada in Iran is coming under strong pressure both from the government of Mahmud Ahmadinejad and from his clerical teachers, themarja`iyyah or spiritual and legal Exemplars to accept al-Maliki for the sake of Shiite power in Iraq. Muqtada has been flirting instead with an alliance with ex-Baathist Iyad Allawi, the darling of the Americans, who is perceived as anti-Iran. Iran really does not want a prime minister Allawi next door in Iraq, and so is trying to strong-arm Muqtada.

Muqtada is not, however, easy to strong-arm, and is now reportedly considering relocating to Beirut as a way of escaping Iranian pressure and also of retaining his independence from the Iraqi political scene. (He may also be thinking he could fill the vacuum created by the death of Lebanese grand ayatollah Muhammad Hussein Fadlallah.) The rumors were denied by Muqtada’s spokesmen in Baghdad, who said it was much more likely that he would return to Iraq.

It would be so ironic if the American hopes for an Allawi government were made to come true by Muqtada al-Sadr.

Pakistan: Floods, Bombings, & A Drone Strike (Cole)

An item that caught our eye this morning: there have been 53 US drone strikes in Pakistan during 2010. That is equal to the total for all of 2009.

Juan Cole rounds up the latest news:

As Pakistan’s army and political elite focused on the catastrophic floods that have put a fifth of the country under water and displaced millions, militants in the mountainous northwest of the country struck on Monday with bombings that killed 32 persons and wounded 42.

Afghanistan Tangled: How Pakistan Used the US & an Arrest to Block Peace Talks with Taliban (Filkins)
Pakistan and the Floods: America’s Broken Response (Mull)

The violence targeted figures involved in mediation between local authorities and the Taliban, and were probably intended by extremists to end such negotiations. In Wana, South Waziristan, a suicide bomber attacked the seminary of Maulana Nur Muhammad, a former member of the Pakistani parliament from the Federally Administered Tribal Areas who ran on the ticket of the Party of the Association of Muslim Clerics (Jami’at Ulama-i Islam (Fazl)). This group is alleged to have helped produce the Taliban back in the 1990s so they are not exactly bleeding heart liberals and it is a little odd that the militants should have killed 22 persons at Nur Muhammad’s seminary. Dawn hints that the clergyman’s opposition to the Uzbek expatriates among the Pakistani Taliban may have led to the Uzbeks targeting him.

Also, as elders of Khurram in FATA met to settle a dispute over who owned a local school, they were blown up by a bomb on a delayed timer, with 7 killed and 6 wounded.

As if to add injury to insult, the United States fired a drone missile at a compound owned by the shadowy Haqqani network in North Waziristan, killing 13 militants and 7 civilians, including women and children.

Given the state of Pakistan, you would think that the US could afford to call a Ramadan ceasefire in its constant bombing of Pakistanis. The deaths of women and children and innocent men in these raids makes for bad feeling toward the US, but especially during the fasting month of Ramadan and in the midst of a major humanitarian crisis? That’s the headline you want, ’7 innocents killed by US drone’? Me, I don’t think that policy is appropriate to the moment.

The Washington Post explores the reasons for which the billions in US aid given since 2001 have not purchased for the US much good will in Pakistan. Washington has avoided iconic projects for fear they would be blown up by militants, and most aid is funneled through branches of the Pakistani government.

Back in Islamabad, President Asaf Ali Zardari said that it would take at least 3 years for Pakistan to recover from the deluge, though he admitted that in some ways the country might never be the same....

Read full article....

UPDATED Iraq: At Least 48 Killed, More than 125 Injured in Bomb Attack

UPDATED 1400 GMT: The death toll is now at least 48, with at least 129 wounded.

According to Al Jazeera, the suicide bomber walked up to an army recruitment centre, on the historical side of Iraq's Ministry of Defense, as hundreds queued to sign up for the military.

A witness said the bomber, "wearing an army uniform, was talking to those recruits, pretending that he was trying to get their names, so people gathered around him and he detonated his charge".



Juan Cole sets the attack in the context of the continuing failure to form a government after the 7 March elections: "The two biggest political lists said that they entertained the most severe reservations about a proposal brought to Baghdad by State Department official Jeffrey Feltman that the two attempt to find a formula for power sharing."

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At least 41 people have been killed in a suicide bomb attack at an army recruitment centre in the Iraqi capital, Baghdad.

Iraqi officials said at least 102 other people were wounded in the blast on Tuesday at around 7:30 a.m. (0430 GMT), when a suicide bomber detonated explosives outside the Iraqi army division headquarters in the Baab al-Muatham neighborhood of central Baghdad.