BAGHDAD — The heavily fortified Green Zone in Iraq’s capital has in recent weeks come under an intensifying barrage of rocket attacks, and a senior American military commander suggested Wednesday that Iranian-backed militias were behind the attacks in an effort to influence the formation of a new Iraqi government.
The attacks — 23 in the past month, including 2 on Wednesday — have alarmed American officials and raised questions about the ability of Iraq’s security forces to stamp out attacks on the capital’s governmental and diplomatic core.
They have coincided with President Obama’s declaration of the end of the American combat mission here on Aug. 31 and the fitful, convoluted negotiations among Iraq’s major political blocs to choose a new prime minister and thus a new government.
The attacks have not been particularly accurate or lethal, although in the past week at least two people were killed in Karada, a neighborhood in a sharp bend of the Tigris River opposite the Green Zone, or international zone, where Iraqi government offices and foreign embassies are concentrated.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/30/world/middleeast/30iraq.html?ref=world
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