Symbolic vs. Systemic Attacks

The BBC is reporting that a bomb went off in a Green Zone cafeteria that is commonly used by Iraqi members of Parliament. At least one person was killed and several more wounded.

Canadian CTV is reporting the same attack and also a large truck bombing attack against a bridge over the Tigris River. The bridge was completely destroyed, severing a link between a Sunni Arab neighborhood on the western shore, and a Shi'ite Arab neighborhood on the eastern shore.

The al-Sarafiya bridge connected two northern Baghdad neighborhoods -- Waziriyah, a mostly Sunni enclave, and Utafiyah, a Shiite area.

Police blamed the attack on a suicide truck bomber, but Associated Press Television News footage showed the bridge broken apart in two places -- perhaps the result of two blasts.

Cement pilings that support the steel structure were left crumbling. At the base of one lay a charred vehicle engine, believed to be that of the truck bomb......

Before the al-Sarafiyah bridge was destroyed, nine spans across the Tigris linked western and eastern Baghdad.....

There have been unconfirmed reports for months that Sunni insurgents and al-Qaida in Iraq were planning a campaign to blow up the city's bridges.

These two attacks are distinctly different styles of attacks. The Green Zone attack is a symbolic act meant to illustrate that there is no security and no safe place for collaborators to gather. Given the pervasiveness of violence that is Baghdad, the marginal value of one more attack to reinforce this point is minimal. Violence is pervasive and collaborating with the United States OR any other perceived to be outside group is dangerous.

The bridge attack is a systemic attempt to change how people are able to interact and conduct the thousands of interactions that allow a modern city to be a functioning place. Two neighborhoods are now significantly disconnected and the diverted traffic that would typically go over this destroyed bridge will either not go across the river, or increase congestion and decrease efficiency at the other Tigris River crossings. The intention of the attack may have been to only generate casualties, or to reduce a neighborhood's vulnerability to sectarian fighting, but the end result will be a decrease in the organizational complexity of Baghdad and a continued reversion to primary loyalties.

UPDATE 1 10:00AM Sky News is reporting that two Iraqi members of Parliament are confirmed dead, and a third MP is also believed to be dead, but they are waiting for confirmation.

UPDATE 2 11:53 AM Spencer Ackerman, currently embedded in Baghdad has a thorough post on these attacks also. He focuses on the complete compromising of internal security that allowed a suicide bomber to get pass several layers of security for the attack against the MPs.