Oct 27 2009, 11:47 PM
Largest Iraq bombing in two years may have been inside job
Sunday’s twin suicide bombings in Baghdad that killed at least 155 people and wounded 500 others may have had help from within Iraq’s security apparatus, MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow reported Monday.
“This was a really well coordinated attack on an area in Baghdad that’s supposed to be well protected,” Maddow told viewers. “In order to reach their targets, the bombers driving these truck bombs had to pass through several checkpoints that were guarded by security forces and those security forces were supposed to be using hand-held devices designed to detect explosives.”
Maddow quoted a comment from Brian Katulis, a Middle East expert at the Center for American Progress, who wrote, “You don’t want to do this kind of attack without having someone on the inside. It implies infiltration of the government. If there is an objective, it’s to send a message to whoever is in power that not everyone recognizes them as being in charge.”
A group called the Islamic State of Iraq, which reportedly includes Al Qaeda in Iraq, has claimed responsibility for the bombing, though, as the Washington Post notes, the authenticity of that claim has not been verified.
As Maddow noted, the Iraqi government says it has arrested at least 75 people in connection with the bombings.
This is not the first time questions have arisen about the possibility of government infiltration by insurgents. In August, Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Sebari said he suspected infiltration in a blast that killed nearly 100 people. "According to our information, there has even been collaboration between security officers and the murderers and killers," said Zebari.
In April of 2007, a bomb attack against the Iraq parliament that killed eight people, including two members of parliament, was suspected to have involved insurgent sympathizers within Iraq’s security forces. The attack “reflects the fact that perhaps there are some people within the Iraqi security forces who have been infiltrated by insurgents and terrorist organizations,” then-Australian Defense Minister Brendan Nelson said.
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Iraq Suffers Worst Attack in 2009 With Twin Bombings (Update5)
Oct. 25 (Bloomberg) -- Twin suicide car bombs targeting government buildings in central Baghdad killed more than 130 people and wounded hundreds more in the worst attack in the country this year, Al-Jazeera television said, citing police.
The bombs went off at 10:30 a.m. local time outside the headquarters of the Baghdad provincial administration and the Ministry of Justice, about 500 meters apart, the state-run Iraqi National Agency said, citing unidentified officials.
The attack was the deadliest this year and the second since August to target government buildings in the Iraqi capital. Coordinated explosions in Baghdad on Aug. 19 struck sites including the Foreign Ministry, killing almost 100 people. Iraq has suffered a surge in violence this year focused on government offices, security forces, the majority Muslim Shiite population and the Kurdish-dominated northern cities of Mosul and Kirkuk.
The attacks, blamed by the government on al-Qaeda and insurgent groups, underscore the fragility of security since U.S. troops withdrew from urban areas on June 30 and as the country prepares for elections in January. U.S. President Barack Obama aims to remove all combat forces by the end of August 2010 and wants a complete U.S. withdrawal by the end of 2011.
Troop Drawdown
Senator John McCain of Arizona said the attack won’t cause the U.S. to rethink its troop drawdown strategy, speaking today on the CBS program “Face The Nation.”
“But there will continue to be outbreaks of this violence -- it’s extremists trying to ignite sectarian violence, that’s what’s going on,” McCain said. “We’ve still got a ways to go but it’s not going to require any delay in withdrawal of U.S. troops.”
The attacks will continue “but they are not sustainable,” said McCain, ranking Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee. “The Iraqi military will be able to handle this transition” as U.S. troops continue to be reduced from the current level of about 117,000, he said.
U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Christopher R. Hill and the top U.S. commander General Ray Odierno condemned the bombings in a joint statement issued today from Baghdad.
“These despicable attacks serve no legitimate purpose” and “will not deter Iraqis from administering justice based on the rule of law and carrying out their legitimate responsibilities,” the statement said.
Justice Sought
The U.S. “will assist in any way to ensure those individuals or groups responsible be pursued and brought to justice in accordance with Iraqi law,” they said.
While violence is below levels at the height of sectarian conflict between Shiites and minority Sunni Muslims three years ago, it has undermined Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki.
“This is coming at a precarious time because of the upcoming elections and the rather quickly paced U.S. withdrawal next year,” Peter Harling, an Iraq expert at the Brussels-based International Crisis Group, said by phone from Damascus. “Maliki opponents in the elections have an interest in seeing him fail in his reputation as someone who has brought a degree of stability. The insurgents are keen to show they have the ability to destabilize Iraq.”
U.S. and Iraqi commanders have said they expect violence to increase before the national elections in January. Apart from the August bombings, the single previous worst incident this year in Iraq was on June 24, when 69 people died following a blast in a market in Baghdad’s Shiite Sadr City area.
