Bombers and gunmen seen thought to be linked to al-Qaeda killed at least 71 people today in a day-long wave of attacks on markets, a textile factory, checkpoints and other sites across Iraq.
The attacks in far-flung locations including Baghdad and towns in the south, north and west of the capital appeared aimed at showing Iraqis that Sunni Islamist insurgents were still a potent force even after battlefield defeats in recent weeks.
‘Despite strong strikes that broke al-Qaeda, there are some cells still working, attempting to prove their existence and their influence,’ said Baghdad’s security spokesman, Major General Qassim al-Moussawi, calling the attacks ‘hysterical’.
The attackers exploited the political disarray that followed a 7 March election that produced no outright winner and pitted a cross-sectarian bloc backed by minority Sunnis against two major Shia-led coalitions.
Two months on, results have not been certified after an election that Iraqis hoped would deliver stable governance as US troops prepare to withdraw more than seven years after ousting Sunni dictator Saddam Hussein.
In the bloodiest incident today, two suicide car bombers drove into the entrance of a textile factory as workers were ending a shift in the town of Hilla, 62 km south of Baghdad, a regional office of the national media centre said.
At least 35 people died and 136 were wounded, hospital and police officials said.
A third bomb exploded as police and medics rushed to the scene, causing additional casualties.
‘This looks like a major campaign by the terrorists, not just in Hilla,’ said Babil province governor Salman al-Zarqani.
The attacks were a reaction to efforts by Shia factions to form a governing coalition after the 7 March election, he said.
Earlier, a suicide bomber wearing an explosives-laden vest and another driving a car killed 13 people and wounded 40 in a marketplace in al-Suwayra 50 km southeast of Baghdad, said Majid Askar, an official with the Wasit provincial council.
At dawn in Baghdad, gunmen equipped with silencers killed at least seven Iraqi soldiers and policemen when they attacked six checkpoints, while bombs planted at three others wounded several more, an Interior Ministry source said.
‘This was a message to us that they can attack us in different parts of the city at the same time because they have cells everywhere,’ the source said.
A series of further attacks in the western province of Anbar, the volatile northern city of Mosul, the northern and western outskirts of Baghdad and elsewhere took the death toll to at least 71, with over 200 wounded.
