This April 23, 2010 New York Times article describes a coordinated series of terrorist bombings in Baghdad, Iraq which killed at least 58 men, women, and children and wounded as many as 100.  The indiscriminate attacks on Iraqi people followed the killing of two Al Qaeda leaders in Iraq by joint Iraqi-American forces five days earlier.  The article says that it was warned that a retaliation may follow, but it is not certain that Al Qaeda was behind the bombings, and the bombs could have been planted by Sunni extremists or Shiites which often have support from Iran.


”Wave of Fatal Bombings Widens Fissures in Iraq”

by Steven Lee Meyers
New York Times

April 23, 2010



Following are excerpts from the original article:

BAGHDAD — A coordinated series of explosions struck a party headquarters, two mosques, a market and a shop in Baghdad on Friday, deepening the country’s turmoil amid a political impasse and a concerted military campaign against the leaders of Al Qaeda in Iraq.

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The attacks, which killed at least 58 people and wounded scores more in Baghdad and elsewhere in Iraq, were the worst of an intermittent wave of bombings since the parliamentary election on March 7.  The outcome of the vote remains unclear, as election officials prepare to conduct a partial recount in Baghdad and possibly other provinces.

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The attacks came five days after a joint Iraqi-American raid killed the top two leaders of Al Qaeda in Iraq.  Iraqi and American officials hailed the killings — and a series of other killings and arrests before and after — as a devastating blow to the group.  At the same time they warned that retaliation was almost certain to come, though it was not clear that the group was behind the attacks on Friday.

At least seven explosions spread carnage in neighborhoods across Baghdad over the course of the day — from a clothing store in Dora to a market in Rahmaniya, from mosques in Huriya and Amin to the three bombs near the Sadr office.  The attacks used bombs hidden in a parked motorcycle and cars, among other places, but did not involve suicide bombers, a typical tactic of Al Qaeda in Iraq.

The attacks struck in mostly Shiite Muslim neighborhoods, but in Anbar, the sprawling Sunni province to the west of Baghdad, 7 people were killed and 11 wounded on Friday morning when five homemade explosives damaged a cluster of houses in a small village.  A police lieutenant heading to the scene was also killed by a roadside bomb.

Al Qaeda in Iraq and other Sunni extremists are blamed for much of the violence in Iraq, but the country faces threats from other militias and terrorists, including those representing Shiites, often with support from Iran.  Without a claim of responsibility, and often even with them, it is difficult to determine the source and motive of attacks here.

If the motive was to discredit Mr. Maliki’s government and Iraq’s security forces, however, it appeared to work.

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