Coordinated Insurgent Attacks in Iraq Kill 100
The 40-odd bombings made Monday the bloodiest day in Iraq this year.
| Posted Monday, July 23, 2012, at 10:14 AM
Photo by Ahmad Al-Rubaye/AFP/Getty Images.
More than 100 people were killed and 300 others injured in Iraq on Monday as insurgents launched at least 40 attacks in what was the bloodiest day in the country this year.
Al-Qaida in Iraq appeared to pre-emptively take credit for the coordinated assault on Sunday, with the group's leader, Abu Bakir Al Baghdadi, promising a new offensive he dubbed "Breaking Down Walls."
The New York Times notes that Baghdadi framed the effort as a Sunni fight against the country's Shia political leaders and said in the statement that "we are returning again to dominate territories we used to dominate, as well as more."
The Associated Press reports that most of the targets were security forces and government buildings, which would appear to be consistent with al-Qaida's larger plan of destabilizing Iraq in the months after American troops left the country.
The deadliest attack was in Taji, where 41 were killed after bombs planted around a handful of houses detonated shortly after dawn, the AP reports. As police gathered to help, a suicide bomber exploded in the middle of the crowd. Most of the targeted areas in Monday's attacks were Sunni majority.
