BAGHDAD — In a coordinated display intended to show they remain a viable force, Iraqi insurgents launched at least 40 attacks throughout the country Monday morning, setting off car bombs, storming a military base, attacking policemen in their homes and ambushing checkpoints, Iraqi authorities said.
At least 110 people were killed and more than 300 wounded in the single bloodiest day this year, according to Iraqi officials in the many areas where attacks took place.
The toll was the worst for a single day in Iraq since May 10, 2010, when a string of nationwide attacks killed at least 119 people. The sheer breadth of Monday’s bloodshed harked back to the bloodiest days of Iraq’s sectarian fighting in 2007, when it was common for more than 100 people to die in a day.
The attacks, coming in the early days of Ramadan, the month-long Muslim religious rite, were predicted Sunday in an audio message attributed to the leader of al-Qaida in Iraq, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, and posted on the group’s website. Al-Baghdadi vowed that a new offensive, which he called Breaking Down Walls, would begin soon.
The offensive was without precedent this year at least in the sheer number of attacks, spread over so many locations in a third of Iraq’s 18 provinces, from north to south. It was sure to raise concerns about the government’s ability to contain the violence six months after the last U.S. troops left the country.
The first attack came at about 5 a.m. Monday when gunmen stormed onto an Iraqi military base near the town of Duluiyah in Salahuddin province and killed 15 Iraqi soldiers, according to security officials. Four soldiers, including a high-ranking officer, were wounded, and a fifth was taken prisoner by the insurgents, who escaped with him.
Then, in steady succession, mostly from 6 a.m. to 10 a.m., car bombs were set off across the country, from Taji and Husseiniya north of Baghdad, to Sadr City in eastern Baghdad; in Tuz in western Salahuddin province, Dujail in southern Salahuddin, and Balad and Baqouba, northeast of the capital, according to police, hospital and Iraqi army officials. Bombs also were set off in the northern cities of Mosul and Kirkuk, and in Diwaniya province in the south.
The insurgents also attacked the home of a police official in Balad, seriously wounding four family members, and ambushed a checkpoint near Baqouba, killing one policeman. In all, 40 attacks were reported in at least six provinces.
Eight attacks occurred in Kirkuk province, mostly targeting police patrols, with eight people killed and 42 wounded.
“Terrorists are opening another gate of hell for us,” said Kamiran Karim, a sweets-seller in Kirkuk, which was hit by five exploding cars throughout the morning. He suffered shrapnel wounds when one of the car bombs blew up about 200 yards from his cart.
In Mosul, of the 11 people killed in four attacks there, seven were Iraqi soldiers. Other attacks targeted marketplaces and other places where civilians were sure to become victims.
The offensive started on the third day of Ramadan, and apparently took advantage of the widespread practice in Iraq and many other Muslim countries of staying up most of the night, and then sleeping late during the daytime when fasting is required.
Unusually, only one of the attacks was confirmed to have been carried out by a suicide bomber, in Mosul, where police managed to shoot the attacker before he could cause any fatalities, authorities said.
The violence could have been worse. Authorities in Salahuddin province, which seemed to be the worst-hit area, said they also managed to defuse two car bombs and three roadside bombs without harm.
“If it wasn’t for our security plans, the loss would have been much bigger,” said Maj. Gen. Jamal Tahir, head of police in Kirkuk.
He said authorities had killed the leader of the al-Qaida cell there and, within hours of the attack, had arrested 12 insurgents, one of whom he said committed suicide in his jail cell, hanging himself with his clothing.
The anger of Iraqis at their own government was on frequent display, especially in the southern province of Diwaniya, where a car bomb exploded in a busy vegetable market, killing five people and wounding 32. A crowd at the scene became angered and started smashing police cars, then marched on government buildings in the area, leading police to fire on the crowd, killing one protester and wounding dozens of others, according to a police official.
By early afternoon the violence had mostly subsided. Then from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m., Iraqi officials said three more car bombs exploded in Baghdad, killing three people and wounding 18. The dead included an Iraqi brigadier general in a blast on a convoy in central Baghdad.
MORE ATTACKS LIKELY
The attacks were likely to continue the trend of the first six months since the departure of U.S. troops, when violence has steadily increased, according to U.N. statistics.June was one of the deadliest months so far, with about 200 people, mostly civilian pilgrims, reported killed.
U.S. and Iraqi officials insist al-Qaida is incapable of sowing the kind of widespread violence that would return Iraq to sectarian warfare. And, indeed, Shiite militias so far have held back from returning fire. But Monday’s attacks prove al-Qaida’s continued ability to thwart security, undermine the government and create chaos in a fragile democracy that experts fear is headed toward a failed state.
Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, accused militants of “spreading panic and fear” and urged political parties to resolve their differences and help restore stability.
Antony Blinken, national security adviser to Vice President Joe Biden, predicted last week that al-Qaida will fail to draw Iraq back toward war. He said the level of violence in Iraq today is roughly what it was before the invasion.
“Iraq remains, relative to other counties, violent, and the Iraqi people suffer from it,” Blinken said in the July 18 briefing at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad. “But again, I think it’s very important to put all of this in context. Compared to where Iraq was a few years ago, there’s been a dramatic change for the better.”
Some Iraqi leaders say Washington is helping Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki gloss over Iraq’s dire situation.
“Things are not good. Things are bad,” Ayad Allawi, the Shiite leader of the secular but Sunni-dominated Iraqiya political coalition said in a July 16 interview with The Associated Press. “The society is split, and we don’t have a real democracy - we have a mockery.” Information for this article was contributed by Yasir Ghazi, Rod Nordland, Duraid Adnan and other Iraqi employees of The New York Times; and by Lara Jakes of The Associated Press.
Front Section, Pages 1 on 07/24/2012