Surging Violence In Baghdad Kills 157

By Cernig

If the surge is working how come violence, which had dropped, is increasing again? Today, Baghdad citizens experienced the equivalent of four VA-Tech style atrocities.

Four large bombs exploded in mostly Shiite areas of Baghdad on Wednesday, killing at least 157 people and wounding scores as violence climbed toward levels seen before the U.S.-Iraqi campaign to pacify the capital began two months ago.

In the deadliest of the attacks, a parked car bomb detonated in a crowd of workers at the Sadriyah market in central Baghdad, killing at least 112 people and wounding 115, said Raad Muhsin, an official at Al-Kindi Hospital where the victims were taken.

...About an hour earlier, a suicide car bomber crashed into an Iraqi police checkpoint at an entrance to Sadr City, the capital's biggest Shiite Muslim neighborhood and a stronghold for the militia led by radical anti-U.S. cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.

The explosion killed at least 30 people, including five Iraqi security officers, and wounded 45, police said.

...Earlier, a parked car exploded near a private hospital in the central neighborhood of Karradah, killing 11 people and wounding 13, police said. The blast damaged the Abdul-Majid hospital and other nearby buildings.

The fourth explosion was from a bomb left on a minibus in the central Rusafi area, area, killattacks on the capital, including a suicide bombing inside parliament and a powerful blast that collapsed a landmark bridge across the Tigris River.

The US military's answer to that is, essentially, "we never said it would be easy". No, you didn't, but what you did say was that clear and hold operations would work. Instead, the various insurgent groups still have the ability to turn up the tempo of violence at will, both inside and outside the capital, and look like continuing to have that ability. Iraqis deserve more than a glib comeback as explanation for why this is the case.