Bombings, shootings spike 40% in BaghdadBAGHDAD -- Bombings and shootings soared by 40 percent in the Baghdad area in the past week, the US military said yesterday.
An American general said extremists were preparing ``an all-out assault" on the capital in a decisive battle for the future of Iraq.
Iraq's most influential Shi'ite cleric issued his strongest call yet for an end to Shi'ite-Sunni bloodletting, urging all Iraqis to wake up to the ``danger threatening the future of the country" and stand ``side by side against it."
US military spokesman Major General William Caldwell said there had been an average of 34 attacks a day involving US and Iraqi forces in and around the capital since July 14 -- up sharply from the daily average of 24 registered between June 14 and July 13.
``We have not witnessed the reduction in violence one would have hoped for in a perfect world," Caldwell told reporters. ``The only way we're going to be successful in Baghdad is to get the weapons off the streets."
Caldwell said insurgents were streaming into the capital for ``an all-out assault against the Baghdad area."
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