Bombings Surge as Iraqi Militants Go on Offensive

[RamboLiberal]

Source: NY Times

A spate of suicide and car bombings in Iraq this week is evidence that militants have begun an offensive they had threatened during the holy month of Ramadan, an American general said today.

Seven car bombs detonated around Iraq today alone, in a drumbeat of violence that began on Monday. The violence was more intensive than has been typical, at least in recent weeks, although American officials continue to maintain that the increased troop levels this year are still proving effective in tamping down violence.

“We have seen an upturn in levels of violence in the last few days,” Maj. Gen. Kevin Bergner, a spokesman for the American military, said at a news conference in the Green Zone in Baghdad. “We know this is a specific period of time when the extremists, in the past, and we know this year, will try to increase the levels of violence during the period of Ramadan,” he said.

In the deadliest attack today, a double car bombing killed 32 people and wounded many more on a busy shopping street in the mixed Sunni and Shiite neighborhood of Bayaar in western Baghdad. The bombs were timed to kill people shopping for groceries before the evening Iftar feast, the meal to break the daily fast of Ramadan.

They detonated about a minute apart; after the first bomb exploded, crowds fleeing the scene ran into the vicinity of the second bomb, a police official said. The tally of dead in those explosions was a preliminary count soon after the blast by the Iraqi Interior Ministry, an official there said. Sunni extremist groups have warned online that Ramadan would be particularly violent, repeating a pattern that has been seen in successive years since the American-led invasion in 2003.



Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/26/world/middleeast/26cnd-iraq.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

[Hydra]

1. But the surge is working!

It's those damn Iranians! :sarcasm:

[Eagle_Eye]

3. The surge had some effect on the ground (but not in the Iraq government)

but our troops are tired, burned out, and short on equipment.
I think what the militants are doing is called a 'counter offensive'.

[Hydra]

5. It would help if we weren't supplying the insurgency

and actually gave the troops what they needed...and weren't insisting on the oil law being a "benchmark."

"If there isn't a problem, I'll create one for them!"
Commander AWOL

[Eagle_Eye]

9. We are spending something on the order of 400 million dollars a day

on this war. Halliburton, Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon are all being funneled money by the little george bush and the republicans. You know the boys in the back room at Sikorsky and Textron-Bell are high fiving each other every time a helicopter crashes.

All of this money is going somewhere, and the troops still do not have enough supplies.

[Bitwit1234]

2. According to the news Iraq is more peacful than the Vatican

not a darn word about anything happening. I know, I know, the media has a blackout. I just forgot bush wants his surge to be working.

[movonne]

4. Do you think some of them might be a little upset due to the

blackwater thing..

[Hangingon]

8. I suspect the "Blackwater Thing" is great with the insurgents.

It is a propaganda victory and will probably reduce a force they don't want. The insurgents don'st care about Iraqi civilians - they are the people they blew up today.

[truthisfreedom]

6. It's nice to know that we're settling into a predictable pattern of total

mayhem.

[pattmarty]

7. There must be some mistake, we're winning aren't we?

[Hissyspit]

10. Dozens Die in Car Bombings as Iraqi Violence Surges

Source: McClatchy Newspapers

Dozens die in car bombings as Iraqi violence surges
By Jay Price | McClatchy Newspapers

BAGHDAD — Car bombs and other attacks killed at least 56 people in Iraq on Wednesday and wounded another 103 in a day of mayhem that heralds an annual surge in violence during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

The bloodiest attack was a double car bombing on a crowded Baghdad shopping street that killed at least 32 and left more than 50 people wounded. It was the worst Baghdad attack since July.

The wave of attacks in the past few days have mostly been in areas where the extremist Sunni Muslim insurgent group al Qaida in Iraq operates and the attacks bear the group's trademarks, said Maj. Gen. Kevin J. Bergner, the top U.S. military spokesman in Iraq.

- snip -

In the town of Um al Diban, a suicide bomber driving a minibus rammed into the home of a contractor who frequently works on U.S. reconstruction projects, killing eight civilians and injuring 10. In downtown Mosul, Ninevah's capital, a morning car bomb at the site of a courthouse under construction killed three and injured 50.

Car bombs also targeted a police patrol in the town of Shirqat, southeast of Mosul, leaving four civilians dead, and an Iraqi army patrol on the highway between Mosul and Irbil. That attack injured three Iraqi soldiers. Just after dawn in Fallujah, where al Qaida has been relatively quiet for months, a dozen gunmen raided a police station and severely injured three police officers. Six gunmen were killed and five captured.

Read more: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/iraq/story/20000.html

[liberal renegade]

11. Hey George

your surge is working, brilliantly.

[acmavm]

13. Yeah, I was gonna ask how that was going.

:sarcasm:

Wonder if General Overbite knows that he looks like a fool.

[bdamomma]

12. this has got to end.

and what they are saying we will be there until 2013!!!! disgusting.

[saigon68]

17. The Industrial complex needs $$$$

[bdamomma]

18. they don't need shit.

[reality based]

14. Since these were car bombs will they count in General What'sHisName's stats?

[truthisfreedom]

15. I wonder how many Iraqis wish Saddam was back in power.

Just askin'.

[KansDem]

16. "Surge," meet "surge"...(nt)