McClatchy reports that a wave of bombings shook Iraq on Wednesday. In double bombing in the Baghdad market of Baya` left 32 dead and nearly that many wounded. From Sinjar in the north to Basra in the south, the country seemed consumed in a paroxysm of violence.
Reuters reports that on Wednesday,
‘ BAGHDAD – Two car bombs killed 32 people and wounded 28 shortly before dusk in Bayaa, a mainly Shi’ite district in southwestern Baghdad, police said. . .
SHIRQAT – Two car bombs killed seven people and wounded five in the town of Shirqat, 300 km (190 miles) north of Baghdad, police said. The first one targeted a police patrol in a crowded market and the second exploded near a police station.
MOSUL – A suicide truck bomber targeting a court under construction killed three workers and wounded 47 others in Mosul, 390 kilometers (240 miles) north of Baghdad, Nineveh police chief Major-General Wathiq al-Hamadani said. ‘
McClatchy has more on violence in Iraq for Wednesday:
Baghdad
– 7 unidentified bodies were found in Baghdad by Iraqi Police today. . .
Mosul . . .
– Suicide car bomb slammed into a construction contractor’s house who is the son of one of the tribal Sheikhs of Shammar tribe, one of the largest tribes in the country in Um al-Diban village near the Iraqi Syrian border to the west of Sinjar at 07:30 this morning. The Kia minibus detonated killing 8 civilians and injuring 10. . . .
– Car bomb targeted an Iraqi military convoy on the highway from Mosul to Irbil ths afternoon injuring 3 Iraqi soldiers.
Basra
– IED explosion in Abu al-Khasib, Hamdan neighborhood, near Hathlool mosque, 15 km to the south of Basra city killed 5 civilians and injured 4. The IED detonated as people started leaving the mosque after evening prayers at around 07:30 pm.
Fallujah
– 12 gunmen attacked al-Shuhadaa Police Station, south Fallujah. 6 of the gunmen were killed, 5 captured and one escaped. 3 policemen were seriously injured.
– A suicide bomber detonated at a police checkpoint in west Fallujah this afternoon. No casualties were reported. . . ‘
Joseph Galloway at McClatchy is shrill, riffing on a shrill H. L. Mencken from 1920:
Mencken: ‘ ” . . . all the odds are on the man who is, intrinsically, the most devious and mediocre — the man who can most easily (and) adeptly disperse the notion that his mind is a virtual vacuum. The presidency tends, year by year, to go to such men. As democracy is perfected, the office represents, more closely, the inner soul of the people. We move toward a lofty ideal. On some great and glorious day, the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.” ‘
Meanwhile, Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani lashed out at pan-Arab satellite stations on Wednesday, according the Mehr News Agency. At a meeting with Shiite tribal leaders, he said:
‘ “Your country is rich and I want you to set aside differences between yourselves and your Sunni brothers and stand like a formidable mountain against attempts by certain satellite networks which try to disrupt this unity because these networks exaggerate about the reports of deaths and explosions and depict them in a way as if tribal war is underway in Iraq,” the statement read which was released by the information office of the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council. ‘
Iraqis frequently accuse Aljazeera and Al-Arabiya of being pro-Sunni and as exaggerating the sectarian violence in Iraq.
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