199 killed in June, Iraq says

[Barrett808]

Source: CNN

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- Nearly 200 people were victims of Baghdad's sectarian violence in the first week of June, with 32 bodies dumped around the capital on Thursday, an Iraq Interior Ministry official said.

The unidentified bodies bore the hallmarks of Iraq's sectarian violence between Shiite and Sunnis: gunshot wounds and signs of torture. They are among the 199 bodies that police have recovered in the first seven days of the month, the Interior Ministry official said.

In May, civilian deaths across the nation jumped by nearly 30 percent to 1,949, among them 746 bodies found dumped on the streets of Baghdad.

On Thursday, a car bomb killed five people and wounded 14 outside a popular restaurant on the edge of Baghdad's Sadr City, the Interior Ministry reported.

Also on Thursday a suicide car bomb killed nine people, including four police officers, near a police station in the northern town of Rabia, Iraqi army and hospital officials said. Another 22 people were wounded, mostly civilians, the officials said. Rabia is in Nineveh province, about 300 miles (482 kilometers) north of Baghdad.

Read more: http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/meast/06/07/iraq.main/index.html?eref=rss_world

[populist101]

1. Sectarian???

They continually make it sound like there's racism or internal hatred involved. I have a sneaking suspicion that "sectarian" is nothing more than propaganda. My opinion might be "crazy", but it's this:

There's a group of Iraqis working with the American government and there's a group of Iraqis that are resisting occupation. We can never understand the complexities of internal politics and war, though. To continually refer to it as some Iraqi problem - sectarian - instead of a problem created by invasion just reeks of Goebbels.

Well, that's how I see it.

[maxsolomon]

2. there's only one way out of a cul-de-sac

turn around & leave.

iraq is broken; the professional class has fled, there are no institutions to hold it together that bush did not break. the sectarian bloodbath is inevitable. move on to plan B: contain the violence in the borders, persuade the Turks to allow a Kurdistan.

[Warren Stupidity]

3. Occupation forces continue to not account for civilian deaths.

Four years and no account at all for the number of Iraqis we kill on a daily basis. Nothing. Sectarian violence? Yes indeed, the Yankee sect is murdering the Iraqi sect with its vast military machine that it used to invade and occupt Iraq.