July 23, 2012 – 100 Dead and 300 Wounded in Bloodiest Iraq Carnage of 2012: A barrage of bombings and attacks targeting civilians and members of the Iraqi armed forces killed and wounded scores of people in nearly two dozen towns and cities across Iraq on Monday after a statement attributed to an al Qaeda-linked militant group threatened Baghdad’s Shiite-led government.
At least 91 people were killed and 318 wounded in the latest spasm of violence, according to accounts late Monday from the Ministry of Interior and security officials around the country. The Associated Press reported that at least 103 people had died.
The bloodshed coincided with the holy Muslim month of Ramadan, a period of daylight fasting and prayers that started Saturday for most adherents of the Shiite branch of Islam, which accounts for the majority of Iraq’s population. For most Sunni Muslims around the world, including in Iraq, the first day of Ramadan was Friday.
The bloodiest attacks in Iraq on Monday were aimed at predominantly Shiite areas, in Baghdad and elsewhere, and at army and police units in oil-rich areas north of the capital that have been roiled by sectarian and ethnic tensions for years.
Several parked car bombs were detonated in markets packed with Ramadan shoppers in predominantly Shiite areas such as Baghdad’s congested Sadr City district, the town of Taji northwest of the capital and the city of Diwaniya to the south, killing and wounding dozens, according to a Ministry of Interior official.
In the most brazen series of assaults against Iraqi security forces in more than a year, gunmen in several vehicles used rocket launchers and grenades in a dawn attack on two military outposts for the Iraqi army’s Fourth Division. The outposts are located in a desert area known as al-Udhaim between Baghdad and the northern oil city of Kirkuk, security officials said. Click on the link below, for the complete story from the Wall Street Journal.
WSJ - Attacks on Shiite Areas of Iraq Kill Scores.
The Master of Disaster
