More than 70 people were killed on Thursday in a wave of bombings across Baghdad as Iraq headed towards a seemingly inevitable sectarian conflict within days of the departure of American troops.

At least 16 separate blasts struck mostly Shia neighbourhoods of the city, though some Sunni areas were also hit. The attacks ranged from "sticky bombs" to fully-loaded car bombs, some doubled up to ensure emergency crews were caught by the second blast, a common tactic of Sunni insurgents. Officials said that 72 people had been confirmed dead, and 217 injured, with the figures still rising.

Political leaders immediately connected the attacks to an angry breakdown this week in the relationship between the Shia prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, and the country's most senior Sunni figures.
Within days of American troops withdrawing, Mr Maliki, whose Shia-led State of Law party is allied to a radical, anti-American and Iranian-influenced Shia group, on Monday demanded the arrest of Tareq al-Hashemi, the Sunni vice-president, accusing him of running a hit squad. He also called for a vote of no confidence against Saleh al-Mutlaq, the Sunni deputy prime minister.

"The timing of these crimes and the places where they were carried out confirm to all the political nature of the targets," Mr Maliki said last night in a statement, suggesting they were a revenge attack and hinting they had political support. "The criminals and those who stand behind them will not succeed in changing events or the political process, or in escaping punishment."

The worst single incident was a suicide attack near a government anti-corruption office in which a stolen ambulance packed with explosives was detonated by its driver, sending debris into the grounds of a nearby kindergarten. Police said 23 people were killed, including five investigators from the office. A string of three explosions killed 18 people at a construction site in central Baghdad. The series of attacks was the most lethal since August and the second worst this year.

"They didn't target any vital institutions or security positions," the Baghdad security spokesman, Major General Qassim Atta, said. "They targeted children's schools, day workers, the anti-corruption agency."

President George W. Bush's "surge", combined with a tactic of using militant Sunni groups against the even more violent local al-Qaeda network, brought the intense violence of 2006-7 under some sort of control by 2008.

Elections last year, which ended in an uneasy coalition government, were supposed to cement the truce between Sunni and Shia politicians and gangs loyal to them. By agreement, the prime minister was to be Shia, the president Kurdish and the vice-president Sunni.

The irony of the Iraq war was that the minority Sunnis, who had most to lose from the fall of the Saddam Hussein, were left with most to fear from the American departure and the prime political position left behind to the country's new Shia masters.

After the final pull-out of American troops last week, Mr Maliki moved quickly to assert control. Mr Hashemi is now in hiding in the Kurdish Autonomous Region of the north and says the judicial system is not free and fair enough for him to return to stand trial. The warrant triggered a walkout from parliament of the Iraqiya bloc, which won the single largest number of seats in the election – 91 to Mr Maliki's 89 – but joined the unity government as a junior member to the Shia coalition.

Al-Qaeda are the most likely perpetrators of the attacks, a clearly well-designed and sophisticated operation, and are probably hoping to exploit the political situation to foment further sectarian bloodshed. Although there is little doubt that some Iraqi politicians have been associated with militant groups, direct responsibility is harder to prove.

In some ways, the greatest beneficiary of yesterday's violence is Mr Maliki himself, whose stand against Sunni leaders appears to be vindicated. But Iyed Allawi, head of the Iraqiya party, of which both Sunni politicians are members, said: "We have warned long ago that terrorism will continue against the Iraqi people unless the political landscape is corrected and the political process is corrected."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...-conflict.html


Australia urges all parties to stand together to ensure the stability of Iraq in the face of such in-discriminant and despicable violence. We send our condolences to those affected by the attacks, and hope that this does not signal a reversal in development.