Dozens dead in wave of blasts in Iraq

The most recent attacks are the bloodiest since 20 March. In Baghdad, three car bombs, two roadside bombs and one suicide car bomb hit mainly Shi’ite areas, killing 15 people and wounding 61, sources said.

Two car bombs and three roadside bombs aimed at police and army patrols in the northern oil city of Kirkuk killed eight people and wounded 26, police and hospital sources said.

Hamit Dardagan, co-founder of the civil society group Iraq Body Count, said the attacks reflect a trend of “targeted” deaths in Iraq.

He told Channel 4 News: “A lot of the deaths we are recording are of people who are specifically targeted, largely the police and anyone connected with the government, so basically attacks are being aimed at the authorities.

“The police are targets but also in the past they have been involved in atrocities. At the height of the violence for example, bodies would turn up wearing police handcuffs.”

US forces withdrew in December 2011, but their departure has not led to a general surge in violence. However, for some in Iraq violent deaths are still a daily occurence. People are still dying violently reports Mr Dardagan: “From a recent analysis we did of the three month period after the US forces withdrew, we found the number of civilian casualties had gone up 30 per cent compared with the previous year. The big incidents do tend to make the news but the daily smaller events continue pretty much unabated.

“This is another indication of low-level conflict and it has been going on now for several years. But it’s not like all Iraqis are at each others’ throats all of the time, it’s not civil war.”

Basra is quite quiet, it sees about one attack per week and these tend to be smaller devices which are designed to intimidate the security services rather than maim. John Drake, security analyst

But to put this into context, that 30 per cent increase is based on current monthly death tolls of around 250-300.

At the height of the conflict in 2006/7, IBC’s figures show annual civilian death toll figures of 28,545 and 25,080 respectively. For the past two years, the number has been relatively stable at around 4,000 fatalities annually. There has not been the bloodbath predicted by, for example, opponents of Barack Obama.

Perhaps then there is reason for cautious optimism.

Intimidation

John Drake, head of global intake at the security risk company AKE told Channel 4 News that the number of attacks in Iraq “hasn’t really gone up or down since 2008” and that insecurity is at a level most businesses could easily cope with.

He said there are a few hotspots but overall homicide rates are higher in Mexico and Venezuela: “In parts of central Iraq there are a couple of attacks per day – places such as Baghdad or further north in Mosul.

On patrol with the Baghdad bomb squad - Krishnan Guru-Murthy reports from Baghdad

“Basra is quite quiet – it sees about one attack per week and these tend to be smaller devices which are designed to intimidate the security services rather than maim.”

He says there are very few deaths in the northern Kurdish areas but points out there are clear reaons for this: “I think it’s because the locals trust the authorities more than in Sunni Arab areas, where not so long ago the police were involved in kidnappings, so it’s going to take a long time to restore trust.

“Under Saddam the police were feared but they were able to keep order with very few resources. This was partly because people were afraid of repercussions from Saddam’s regime and partly because the police co-operated with the tribal system of justice.

“The Kurdish areas are more stable for several reasons. They’re culturally and ethnically more homogenous than in many other areas of the country and they’ve had a lot of money pumped into them. They’ve been pretty secure since the early 1990s because of for example, the no-fly zone there and this means they’ve had time to build up state institutions.”

Future

As for the future, Hamit Dardagan from Iraq Body Count says there is still much to do before Iraq is truly safe: “Right now there are not signs of improvement if we measure it in terms of the number of civilian deaths but there has not been a bloodbath following the withdrawal of UK and US troops. Ultimately though, the only people who will be able to make peace in Iraq are Iraqis.”

And security analyst John Drake from AKE feels the Iraq war will still have an impact years from now: “The thing is, I think because people in Iraq have been so brutalised by the conflict and children have seen so many horrible things, I don’t think we’ll see the full impact of the conflict for perhaps a decade.

“We find that a lot of the criminals are former insurgents and they have become desensitised to violence. This means we see things like torture carried out in inter-gang feuds – the violence is disproportionate.”

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