Just another day in the life and death of Iraq XCI

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Yes, things have gotten better in Iraq. Perhaps even a lot better, if the lack of media coverage is any indication that the bloodshed has subsided. Indeed, we haven't done a "Just another day" post since the end of April, if I remember correctly. Not that this blog is the definitive word on the situation in Iraq, of course, but it's telling, I think, that there just hasn't been that much to write about when it comes to the sort of horrendous violence that rocked Iraq for so long.

Yesterday, though, saw a return to the darker days of years past, with bloody attacks in Baghdad:

Two powerful suicide car bombs near high-profile government offices rocked the capital on Sunday in the deadliest attack here in more than two years, killing at least 147 people and raising fresh worry about the capabilities of Iraq's security services ahead of national elections scheduled for January.

The Ministry of Interior said that in addition to the dead, more than 500 people were injured. Charred bodies, limbs and the smoldering shells of dozens of cars littered the area. The explosions also shattered windows throughout the nearby Mansour Hotel, which houses the Chinese Embassy. Some ceilings collapsed.

The blasts, which the government said bore the signature of al Qaeda in Iraq, most damaged Baghdad's provincial headquarters and the nearby federal Ministry of Justice. Many of the protective blast walls surrounding those buildings collapsed.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki visited the site of the attacks and blamed al Qaeda and members of the Baath party. His office said in a statement that the explosions were meant to create instability and to stop the January parliamentary elections.

President Barack Obama called the attacks an attempt to "derail Iraq's progress." He said the U.S. "will stand with Iraq's people and government as a close friend and partner as Iraqis prepare for elections early next year." The president spoke with Mr. Maliki and Iraqi President Jalal Talabani by phone to express his condolences.

Evidently, it's not yet clear who was behind the attacks, though it may very well have been al Qaeda or Sunni insurgents opposed to the positive direction the country seems to be heading in. What is clear, though, is that, while violence continues throughout the country, yesterday was the exception, not the rule, which is a drastic change from the way things were not so very long ago.

Just another day in the life and death of Iraq LXXXVI

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Yes, so far it's been a bloody 2009 in Iraq.

On Friday there was this (anti-Sunni). And yesterday there was this (anti-Shiite):

A suicide bomber infiltrated a crowd of Shi'ite pilgrims and blew himself up, killing at least 35 people and wounding at least 79 at a Shi'ite shrine in Baghdad on Sunday, Iraqi officials said.

Words fail me at the moment.

Just another day in the life and death of Iraq LXXXV

By Michael J.W. Stickings

I explained back in October why I haven't been adding much to this ongoing series lately. Although I still blame the media for its negligent coverage of the situation in Iraq, there is no denying that Iraq isn't as deadly as it used to be. Indeed, according to both the Iraqi government and the non-governmental Iraq Body Count, the number of civilian deaths was down by two-thirds last year compared to 2007. (The official number is 5,714, whereas IBC puts the number between 8,315 and 9,028.) U.S. military deaths were also down, from about 900 to about 300.

But let's keep this in perspective. Civilians deaths may have declined significantly from 2007 to 2008, but there were still thousands and thousands of them. I suspect that the official number is low, but even if the IBC range is high the number of deaths was still about 6,500 to 7,500. And 2009 has gotten off to a predictably violent start:

At least 23 people have been killed in a suicide bombing in a town south of the Iraqi capital Baghdad, police say.

About 110 people were also injured in the attack at a gathering of Sunni Muslim tribal leaders in Yusufiya, 20km (12 miles) from Baghdad.

Don't get me wrong, the decline in civilian deaths is nothing if not a positive development. It's just that the level of violence in previous years, which may have been unsustainable even without the surge (which was only partly responsible for the decline), shouldn't be the sole standard by which to judge the current level of violence.

The numbers are down, but the context is that Iraq remains an incredibly violence place. There is much blame to go around, to be sure, but it is the Iraqi people who are suffering.

Just another day in the life and death of Iraq LXXXIV

By Michael J.W. Stickings

I haven't done one of these in a couple of months, for a number of reasons: 1) The U.S. presidential race has occupied most of my blogging time; 2) the violence is down, overall, in Iraq; 3) personal negligence (I should have but didn't); 4) media negligence (Iraq has been relegated to minor news, with much of the violence going largely unreported); and 5) repetition and exhaustion (what can one say about the spilling of blood in Iraq that hasn't been said many times before?).

We've become somewhat desensitized to it all, and violence is down overall for a number of reasons (of which the surge is one, but perhaps not the biggest one), and the media seem to be taking it all for granted (violence in Iraq is no longer much of a story), but make no mistake: Iraq is still an incredibly violent place.

Here's the latest from the NYT:

As Muslims celebrated the close of the fasting month of Ramadan, suicide bombers killed at least 20 people in attacks on two Shiite mosques during early morning prayers in different areas of Baghdad early Thursday, the Interior Ministry said.

The attacks were the second wave this week during a lengthy public holiday covering observances of the Id al-Fitr feast, which is celebrated at different times by Sunnis and Shi'ites at the end of Ramadan.

In the middle-class Zafraniya district, an area of southeast Baghdad with a mixed population of different faiths, a car bomber rammed a taxi into an armored vehicle guarding the entrance to a compound, killing eight people, including two Iraqi soldiers, the Interior Ministry said. The attack took place in neighborhood whose population is heavily Shiite.

In the second attack, a bomber wearing an explosive vest tried to enter a prayer hall in the predominantly Shiite New Baghdad area nearby, killing 12 people and wounding at least 25.

Just more of the same. And a same seemingly without end.

Just another day in the life and death of Iraq LXXXIII

By Michael J.W. Stickings

For all the talk about "the conditions on the ground," as McCain put it the other day, about timetables, about how the situation there is not quite as bad as it was, say, a couple of years ago, and about whether the Surge has been a success or not, Iraq is still an incredibly violent and bloody place.

As we were reminded once again today:

Female bombers struck Kurdish political protesters in Kirkuk and Shiite pilgrims in Baghdad on Monday morning, leaving at least 48 people dead and 249 wounded in one of the bloodiest sequences of attacks in Iraq this year.

In the northern city of Kirkuk, at least 24 people were killed and 187 wounded, after a female suicide bomber blew herself up amid thousands of Kurdish demonstrators who had gathered near the provincial headquarters building...

In the attacks in Baghdad, three women used suicide vests and a bomb in a bag to make strikes just minutes apart, killing 24 people, all apparently Shiite pilgrims marching in a festival, according to an official at the Interior Ministry. The dead included at least four children, one of them an infant, and there were at least 62 other people wounded, according to police officials and witnesses.

While it may be true that the violence is down across the country, and while it is true that "the conditions on the ground" may have improved, and be improving, somewhat, it is disturbing how so much of the talk about Iraq is cleansed of bloody reality. Perhaps we have grown desensitized to it, perhaps the media don't care anymore (as it isn't sensational enough anymore, which is to say, it isn't enough of a story anymore), perhaps the narrative of steady improvement, however inaccurate, has taken over, or perhaps we just don't want to hear any more of it, eager for the war and occupation to be over and for the troops to come home, but, whatever the case, we need to be shaken from our slumber and to see things as they really are.

Unfortunately, it has reached the point where it takes horrific acts like these to arouse our attention. Which is not a reflection of how well things are going in Iraq (a violent act or two shattering an otherwise peaceful landscape), but of how badly things have gone (extremely violent acts looming up out of a violent landscape, overshadowing the everday violence that plagues the country, acts so horrific as to penetrate the numbness, our numbness, even as we have come to realize how badly things have gone).

Just another day in the life and death of Iraq LXXXII

By Michael J.W. Stickings

American media attention was focused briefly, very briefly, on Iraq during and around the recent Petraeus-Crocker hearings on Capitol Hill, but, otherwise, the media are too busy sensationalizing every little development in the Obama-Clinton race to pay any sustained attention to the ongoing war and occupation, one that, according to the Republicans' choice for warmongerer-in-chief, could go on for, oh, another hundred years or so.

Blood is shed and people are dying, but -- by Zeus! -- there's Obama bowling! -- there's Clinton chugging a beer!

The war, you see, is just too complicated for the media. It doesn't make sense and it doesn't seem to be going anywhere. The initial shock 'n' awe, they got, but the nuances of religious sectarianism, well, not so much. It was fine when the U.S. was kicking ass, sure, back when victory was at hand, or so it seemed, but it's so hard to keep score now, and how can you follow a war, how can you know who's winning and by how much, without a scoreboard in The Situation Room? Just imagine John King with a magic map of Iraq, zooming in and out to give us all the latest death toll updates in real time. Ah, but there's that attention span, too -- and the media just don't have one, much like so many of their consumers.

But you know all this already, right? So let me just give you the latest -- from the BBC:

More than 70 people have been killed in blasts at three cities in Iraq, in one of the deadliest days there for weeks.

At least 53 died and another 90 were injured when explosives packed in a bus detonated outside a restaurant near a court in Baquba, north of the capital.

And 13 more were killed in a suicide bombing at a kebab restaurant where policemen were eating in Ramadi, which had seen a sharp decline in violence.

Three people were also killed in Mosul in the north, and another in Baghdad.

Of course, the media would prefer to wave the flag -- the American media, that is. They just don't know what to do with a war that has already been lost.

Just another day in the life and death of Iraq LXXXI

By Michael J.W. Stickings

The headline at Juan Cole's place sums it up:

4 US Troops Killed;

Hundreds Flee Baghdad Clashes;

Ayatollahs Decline to Ban Militia

Read the whole post, including the McClatchy round-up at the end, but here are a few key passages:

-- "Guerrillas killed 4 US troops in Iraq on Monday, bringing the 2-day total to 9."

-- "Robert Reid of AP reports that hundreds of Iraqis fled the Shiite districts of Baghdad that are under siege by American and Iraqi government forces. The US and its Iraqi allies engaged in firefights on several fronts in the Shiite neighborhoods. US helicopter gunships and fighter bombers also fired missiles into the civilian neighborhoods. The attacks left 14 dead in the Baghdad area. The US military denies that its bombing of civilian neighborhoods kills innocent civilians. While I know they try hard to minimize collateral damage, the blanket form of the assertion is not plausible."

-- "The Baghdad fighting is the worst in about a year."

-- "[T]he US press went wild for this supposed report that Muqtada al-Sadr said he would dissolve his militia if Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani ordered it. Folks, he always says that when there is a controversy. (He said the same thing in spring, 2004). He says it because he knows it makes him look reasonable to the Shiite public. He says it because he knows that the grand ayatollahs are not going to touch the matter with a ten foot pole... So the idea that, having lost militarily, al-Maliki and his political allies (who are a minority in parliament now) could just a couple of days later jawbone Muqtada into giving up his paramilitary was always absurd."

But, of course, so much of this war and occupation is absurd. We might as well stand around and hope that Godot shows up to save the day.

4,000

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Just another day: "As many as 20 mortar shells were fired Sunday at the heavily fortified Green Zone, one of the fiercest and most sustained attacks on the area in the last year... [The shelling] ushered in a day of violence around the country that claimed the lives of at least 58 lraqis and four American soldiers."

Just another milestone: "A roadside bomb killed four U.S. soldiers in Baghdad on Sunday, the military said, pushing the overall American death toll in the five-year war to at least 4,000."

What a war.

Just another day in the life and death of Iraq LXXIX -- plus, the lies and (self-)delusions of Cheney and McCain

By Michael J.W. Stickings

McCain, Graham, and Lieberman arrived in Baghdad on Sunday, a trio of (self-)delusion, cheerleading the war and occupation, avoiding certain neighbourhoods, promoting McCain's presidential bid while masquerading as a congressional delegation, and generally trying to make it seem like the surge is working and all is going well, more or less, much more than less, for they seem to believe it to be true, or to have convinced themselves that it is true, that their (self-)delusions are genuine glimpses of reality, actual truth and actual reality to the contrary.

Cheney arrived in Baghdad on Monday, met with Crocker, Petraeus, and Maliki, and, the personification of (self-)delusion of an even more arrogant and self-righteous variety, used words like "phenomenal" and "remarkable" to describe the situation in Iraq at the moment. He also claimed, once again, that there was "a link between Iraq and al-Qaeda" before the U.S. invasion, a claim all the more silly (and (self-)delusional) now that the Pentagon itself has finally determined otherwise. He may believe some of it to be true -- how well things are going, how there was that link, how he's right and everyone's wrong, no matter what -- but he is nothing if not a bald-faced liar.

Yes, five years into the war and the lies and deceptions keep coming.

**********

Meanwhile, happy talk aside, truth and reality hit hard again yesterday:

A bombing on Monday evening killed 43 people near the Imam Hussein shrine in the Shiite holy city of Karbala, penetrating one of the most secure perimeters in Iraq. Iraqi police officers at the scene and several witnesses said it had been carried out by a female suicide bomber, but the police chief later said the bomb had been hidden.

And that wasn't all:

In the Iraqi capital Baghdad, a mortar attack by unidentified insurgents killed five people and wounded seven on a football pitch.

Earlier in the day, bombs in and around the city killed at least two Iraqi civilians and two US soldiers.

Phenomenal, huh? Go to hell, Cheney, and take all your warmongering pals with you.

Just another day in the life and death of Iraq LXXV, LXXVI, LXXVII, and LXXVIII

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Needless to say, there have been many more days of violence than those upon which we have reported. There is only so much we can do, after all. And, lately, most of our attention has been on the U.S. presidential race. But let us turn, in this post at least, to the ongoing Iraq War and Occupation. Here are some stories from the past few days:

-- Monday (WaPo): "Eight U.S. soldiers died in separate attacks here and in the eastern province of Diyala on Monday, the deadliest day for U.S. troops in more than two months." (More from NYT.)

-- Tuesday (AP): "Violence reportedly killed at least 42 people Tuesday in Iraq after the deadliest day for U.S. troops in precisely six months." (More from CNN, LAT.)

-- Wednesday (AP): "Three U.S. soldiers were killed in a rocket attack in southern Iraq on Wednesday, bringing to 12 the number of Americans who have been killed in Iraq over the past three days."

-- Wednesday (AP): "U.S. soldiers fired a warning shot near a woman who 'appeared to be signaling to someone' along a dangerous stretch of road north of Baghdad, but the bullet killed a young Iraqi girl."

-- Thursday (AP): "A parked car bomb exploded in a commercial district of central Baghdad Thursday, killing 11 people and wounding 57, police said."

And so it goes...

Just another day in the life and death of Iraq LXXIV

By Michael J.W. Stickings

It's a bad day in Baghdad:

More than 70 people have been killed by two bombs in Baghdad, attached to two mentally disabled women and detonated remotely, says a security official.

*****

The death toll in Friday morning's attacks at two animal markets was the highest in months in Baghdad.

Yes, you read that correctly: the two suicide bombers were mentally disabled women -- although one wonders whether suicide is the right word for it. Did they act on their own volition, or where they coerced into it? For that matter, aren't most suicide bombers coerced into it?

Regardless, there is no doubt that the U.S. surge has contributed to the decrease in violence in some parts of Iraq, including Baghdad. There are other factors, too, though, and, on the whole, the surge has failed to meet its critical political objectives, including political reconciliation between and among Iraq's sectarian groups.

And the fact is, Iraq is still an incredibly violent place. And it could soon get much worse. Basically, the convenient alliances between the U.S. military and Sunni insurgent groups are won't hold up and the Shiite militias, including Sadr's, will rise up once again. The sectarian violence will escalate, plunging Iraq back into the abyss, or, rather, further into the abyss. And, of course, there's al Qaeda. Bush may think the U.S. has it on the run, but it is still, needless to say, a potent force capable of immense violence.

As I have suggested before, there has been a calm before the storm in Iraq. That relative calm was broken today, as it has been repeatedly even as the war's proponents have been gloating with delusional optimism these past months. There has been no political reconciliation and the blood continues to flow in the streets.

Just another day in the life and death of Iraq LXXIII

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Apologists for the Iraq War and Occupation have been touting the alleged success of the Surge. Violence is down, they say, and that proves the Surge is working and, more generally, that things are looking brighter overall, that more of the same is the best policy. While it is true that there has been some success, isolated and likely temporary success, in such places as Anbar, the numbers show clearly that the Surge has not worked. Some positive numbers can be found, but the violence continues, as does the instability, and, meanwhile, the political situation remains tenuous at best. Progress and reconciliation remain largely impossible goals at this point, as the Iraqis themselves admit, and no amount of surge is likely to turn the situation around.

As for the violence, consider what happened yesterday:

Police training in the provincial capital of Baquba turned into a blood bath on Monday when a suicide bomber on a bicycle set off his explosive vest in the midst of policemen, killing 29, the local police said.

A suicide bomber killed seven people just north of Baghdad, and the United States military said a brigadier general had been wounded by a roadside bomb in northern Baghdad, according to The Associated Press. Brig. Gen. Jeffrey Dorko, the highest-ranking American officer to be hurt since the invasion in March 2003, was evacuated to Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany. His wounds were not life-threatening, The A.P. said.

Taken together, the attacks highlighted the continuing instability in the vicinity of Iraq’s capital and were a reminder of how easily security in the city could disintegrate.

The blast in Baquba, the capital of Diyala Province, also wounded 19 people, including 7 policemen who were in critical condition and a woman and her baby, provincial authorities said. Most of the police officers killed and wounded were members of the recently formed emergency police brigade in Diyala.

So what good does it do for U.S. troops to wage limited mini-wars here and there around Iraq if the goal of stability is not being achieved? Was that not the purpose of the Surge? The surge in and around Baghdad has proven to be of limited success, that is, qualified success, if success at all, and the government in Baghdad remains impotent and essentially sectarian, and success in Anbar has depended upon a strategic alliance of U.S. forces and local Sunni elements, mostly anti-American, who have come to oppose al Qaeda, an alliance that may not prove to be of limited long-term value, indeed, one that may break down once the local Sunnis no longer require U.S. support.

This is not what you will hear from the apologists, the warmongers who want this war to go on and on and on -- and to expand into Iran and perhaps Syria. But the truth is that the Surge has not worked and that success -- the establishment of stability for political progress -- will not be achieved. While the warmongers wish to continue with failure, as they have done all along, it is long past time for the U.S. to withdraw and for the occupation to end. There has been enough time, effort, and surge -- enough for those who started this war to get it right, which they haven't done, time and time again, and nothing is about to change, not as long as "more of the same" is the preferred stategy, not as long as the failed Surge is allowed to continue.

Just another day in the life and death of Iraq LXXI

By Michael J.W. Stickings

We haven't done one of these in some time, but not for lack of death. There has continued to be much of it, far too much, and today was no exception:

At least 22 people have been killed in a series of bombings and shootings in Iraq, security officials say.

Fourteen people were killed in Diyala province, north of the capital Baghdad, when militants attacked two villages.

At least six people were killed by a bomb near the northern city of Kirkuk and two people were killed by a car bomb in Baghdad.

On one side -- the happy talk, the optimism, the claims of success, from Bush and Petraeus and the war's other cheerleaders.

On the other side -- the reality of the war and occupation, the truth.

(For previous posts in this series, see here.)

Spinning the dead

By Creature

Seven more soldiers reported dead today. Eight soldiers were reported dead on Wednesday. Add in a few more and you have eighteen dead soldiers for the month. A month only seven days old. But it's OK, all these dead people, because we're "kicking ass" and will be kicking said ass for the next 20 years.

Bring 'em on.

(Cross-posted at State of the Day.)

Dying to lay a foundation for another war

By Creature

I'm not sure which makes me madder, the tragic first part of this MSNBC headline, or the neocon-serving stenography of the second?



Bang that drum.

(Cross-posted at State of the Day.)

The toll just gets worse

By Edward Copeland

The latest reports on the deadly bombing against the Yazidi sect in northern Iraq has the death toll soaring past 400 as they continue to dig through the rubble of Tuesday's attack.

How's that surge going?

By Edward Copeland

***UPDATE*** (this post has been bumped up from yesterday)

The latest version of The Washington Post story has the death toll climbing above 250 and details more specifically how the attacks were carried out:

The nearly simultaneous explosions, in three Yazidi communities near the town of Sinjar, added up to the deadliest attack in Iraq this year and one of the most lethal since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003. Hundreds of wounded people were flown or driven to hospitals, overwhelming every emergency room in the region, according to George Shlimon, vice mayor of the nearby city of Dahuk.

According to The Washington Post, the Yazidis are "an ancient group whose faith combines elements of many historical religions of the region. They worship a peacock archangel and are considered Satanists by some Muslims and Christians in Iraq, a characterization they reject."

However, just because the Iraqis are once again busy killing one another, it doesn't mean it was a breathe-easy days for the American military stuck in the middle of the mess:

In Baghdad, the U.S. military reported the deaths of nine American military personnel in three incidents, including the crash of a twin-rotor Chinook helicopter. ... In Anbar province Tuesday, five Americans died when the Chinook helicopter went down during a training flight, the military said. The cause of the crash is under investigation. Three other U.S. soldiers were killed Monday by a roadside bomb in the province of Nineveh, in northwestern Iraq, officials said, while one was killed in combat in western Baghdad.

Meanwhile, in Ritalin-deprived Dubyaland, they can't stop thinking about Iran, moving to designate Tehran's Revolutionary Guard, "a specially designated global terrorist":

The Bush administration has chosen to move against the Revolutionary Guard Corps because of what U.S. officials have described as its growing involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as its support for extremists throughout the Middle East, the sources said. The decision follows congressional pressure on the administration to toughen its stance against Tehran, as well as U.S. frustration with the ineffectiveness of U.N. resolutions against Iran's nuclear program, officials said.

The designation of the Revolutionary Guard will be made under Executive Order 13224, which President Bush signed two weeks after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks to obstruct terrorist funding. It authorizes the United States to identify individuals, businesses, charities and extremist groups engaged in terrorist activities. The Revolutionary Guard would be the first national military branch included on the list, U.S. officials said -- a highly unusual move because it is part of a government, rather than a typical non-state terrorist organization.

Just another day in the life and death of Iraq LXVII

By Creature

Today, in the hell of our making.

BAGHDAD - A highly sophisticated simultaneous truck bombing and rocket attack devastated a Shiite market district in one of Baghdad's safest central neighborhoods Thursday, killing at least 28 people and wounding 95. Separately, the American military announced the deaths of seven U.S. troops.

And, it wouldn't be 'Just Another Day' without a little undocumented finger pointing at Iran.

Without offering any proof, [General] Odierno said networks continue to smuggle powerful roadside bombs and mortars across the border from Iran despite Tehran's assertions that it supports stability in Iraq.

(Cross-posted at State of the Day.)

Just another day in the life and death of Iraq LXV and LXVI

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Tuesday: "A suicide car bomber has struck a busy marketplace in the Iraqi town of Hilla, killing at least 22 people and wounding more than 60."

Wednesday: "Two bomb attacks have killed at least 50 people and injured 135 in Baghdad as crowds celebrated the Iraqi national football team's win over South Korea."

And today... and tomorrow... and...

Nice little war you started, Mr. Bush.

Just another day in the life and death of Iraq LXIV

By Michael J.W. Stickings

You know, I don't do this series as a way of taking cheap shots at Bush and his war. Although I think Bush is to blame for how badly the war has gone -- well, Bush and those around him, those who called the shots, those like Cheney and Rumsfeld -- and although the gross mismanagement of the war and subsequent occupation has had and continues to have a direct relationship with the violence that engulfs Iraq -- a causal relationship, in fact, which is to say that the war has been waged without regard for what would happen in Iraq, and between Iraqis, post-Saddam -- there seems to me to be some value in tracking the violence and in reporting on what is really going on in that country, day after day after day. For all the discussion with respect to if and when the U.S. should withdraw its troops, for all the discussion of terrorism and foreign fighters, of Iran and Saudi Arabia, and the like, what is really going on is that people are dying, and dying violently, and doing so in huge numbers, numbers so huge as to numb us to that reality.

And so here, again, is the latest, and it comes from the north, Kurdish Iraq, Kurdistan, where the violence is increasing:

A massive truck bomb followed by two smaller blasts ravaged Kirkuk on Monday, police said, killing more than 80 people in the deadliest attack in the troubled northern Iraqi city since the war began.

The first blast, believed to be a suicide attack, tore through a commercial strip outside the office of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, the political party of Iraqi President Jalal Talabani. As residents fled the area, a car bomb exploded in the Haseer market less than a mile away, police Col. Pestton Mahmoud said.

Witnesses described seeing burning cars and charred bodies in the streets as they ran from the scene. Emergency crews and volunteers raced scores of victims to medical care, overwhelming local hospitals already teeming with hundreds of patients injured in a July 7 bombing in the nearby village of Amerli, police said.

The attacks this month are part of a pattern of increasing violence at a time of heightened tensions among ethnic Kurdish, Arab and Turkmen residents in the city and its environs.

And so it goes, as I often say in loss for better words.

And so it goes.