Iraq Oil Report's Daily Brief compiles the most important news and analysis about Iraq from around the web.
Published May 19, 2013
Kamal Namaa and Raheem Salman report for Reuters:
Suspected Sunni Muslim militants killed four state-backed Sunni fighters in Iraq on Saturday, security sources said, apparently viewing them as collaborators with the Shi'ite-led government of a nation plagued by sectarian hatred.
Sunni-Shi'ite tensions in Iraq have been amplified by the conflict between mostly Sunni rebels and President Bashar al-Assad's Alawite-dominated forces in neighboring Syria.
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Published May 19, 2013
Omar Al-Saleh reports for Al-Jazeara:
The death toll in Iraq from four consecutive days of violence has reached at least 140 people, stirring fears that rising sectarian conflicts could lead the country into civil war.
Many Iraqis were in mourning on Sunday amid simmering tensions between the Sunni minority and Shia majority despite increased security patrols.
In Baghdad, the presence of SWAT teams, army, police officers and mobile checkpoints has increased in several areas.
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Published May 18, 2013
Hadeel Al Sayegh reports for The National:
Hidden behind blast walls and checkpoints on the eastern side of Baghdad is a giant concrete structure that has withstood three decades of war, sectarian violence and sanctions: Le Corbusier’s Gymnasium.
Designed in the early 1950s by the famed French architect as part of Iraq’s aborted bid to stage the 1960 Olympic Games, the building still bears its original motto: “Where order is born, well-being is born”, its inspirational words mocking the structure’s current chaos.
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Published May 18, 2013
Sameer N Yacoub reports for the Associated Press:
Gunmen killed the entire family of an anti-terrorist policeman in Baghdad and a Sunni cleric in the Shiite-majority south on Saturday, part of a wave of attacks across Iraq that left eight dead, said officials.
The attacks follow three days of bombings and other violence across the country that killed 130 people. A market, a mosque and bus stops in both Shiite and Sunnis areas were targeted in scenes reminiscent of the retaliatory attacks between the two groups that pushed the country to the brink of civil war in 2006-2007.
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Published May 17, 2013
The BBC reports:
At least 30 people have been killed and dozens injured in two explosions outside a mosque in the Iraqi city of Baquba, north of Baghdad.
Police and medical workers say the bombs went off as people were leaving the Sunni mosque after Friday prayers.
Later, police said at least seven people were killed by a bomb at a Sunni funeral south of Baghdad.
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Published May 16, 2013
The BBC reports:
A suicide bomber has attacked a Shia mosque in the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk, killing at least eight people, police said.
The mosque was being attended by relatives mourning victims of violence in the city the day before.
On Wednesday, at least 34 people died in bomb attacks across Iraq, several of which targeted Shia districts of Baghdad.
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Published May 16, 2013
Mohammed Tawfeeq reports for CNN:
Iraqi security forces raided a farm belonging to a prominent Sunni tribal leader Thursday, he and two other tribal leaders said, prompting fears that sectarian tensions could escalate in Iraq's restive al-Anbar province.
Dozens of Anbar tribal fighters have now surrounded the Iraqi army headquarters in Ramadi, demanding that Iraqi soldiers withdraw from Anbar province immediately, police officials in Ramadi told CNN.
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Published May 16, 2013
Mohammed Tawfeeq reports for CNN:
At least 29 people were killed and more than 120 others wounded in a dozen car bomb explosions in Baghdad and Kirkuk on Wednesday, police said.
In Baghdad, 10 car bombs exploded in the predominately Shiite neighborhoods, killing 24 people and wounding 110 others Wednesday evening.
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Published May 16, 2013
Michael Knights writes for Foreign Policy:
As American troops were pulling out of Iraq in 2010, the U.S. effort to stabilize the country resembled the task of an exhausted man who had just pushed a huge boulder up a steep hill. Momentum had been painstakingly built up and the crest approached. Was it safe to stop pushing and hope that the momentum would take the boulder over the top? Or would the boulder grind to a halt and then slowly, frighteningly roll back toward us?
Now we know -- and to be honest, the answer is hardly a surprise. Iraq is a basket case these days, and none of its problems came out of the blue. In the latest bout of sectarian and ethnic bloodletting, coordinated bomb attacks ripped through Shiite neighborhoods in Baghdad and also northern Iraq, killing more than 30 people. The spasm of violence followed clashes between the Iraqi army and Sunni protesters and insurgents last month, where the federal government temporarily lost control of some town centers and urban neighborhoods in Kirkuk, Nineveh, and Diyala provinces.
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Published May 16, 2013
Mustafa Mahmoud and Kareem Raheem report for Reuters:
Bomb attacks in Shi'ite areas of Baghdad and in northern Iraq killed more than 35 people on Wednesday, following weeks of violence by Sunni Islamist insurgents determined to unleash sectarian confrontation.
Tensions between minority Sunni Muslims and the Shi'ites who now lead Iraq are at their highest since U.S. troops pulled out in 2011, with relations coming under more pressure by the day from the largely sectarian conflict in neighboring Syria.
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