Editorial Note: The following news reports are summaries from original sources. They may also include corrections of Arabic names and political terminology. Comments are in parentheses. 63 Iraqis Killed, 194 Injured in Baghdad Blasts, Following Maliki Arrest Warrant Against Hashimi  December 22, 2011

Baghdad blasts kill 63 as Iraq tensions rise

By Kareem Raheem

Thursday, December 22, 2011, 8:46am EST

BAGHDAD (Reuters) -

 A series of bombings hit Baghdad on Thursday, killing at least 63 people in the first big assault attack on Iraq's capital since a sectarian crisis erupted within its government just days after the U.S. troop withdrawal.

The apparently coordinated bombings were the first sign of a violent backlash against Shi'ite Muslim Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's move to sideline two Sunni Muslim rivals, raising the risk of a relapse into the sort of sectarian bloodletting that drove Iraq to the brink of civil war a few years ago.

At least 18 people were killed when a suicide bomber driving an ambulance detonated the vehicle near a government office in Baghdad's Karrada district, sending up a dust cloud and scattering car parts into a kindergarten, according to police and health officials.

"We heard the sound of a car driving, then car brakes, then a huge explosion, all our windows and doors are blown out, black smoke filled our apartment," said Maysoun Kamal, who lives in a Karrada compound.

In total at least 63 people were killed and 194 were wounded in more than ten explosions across Baghdad, security and police sources said. Most of the targeted districts were Shi'ite.

Iraqi officials quickly branded the attacks a political message sent during the current crisis.

"The timing of these crimes and the places where they were carried out confirm to all... the political nature of the targets," Maliki said in a statement.

Two roadside bombs struck the southwestern Amil district, killing at least seven people and wounding 21 others, while a car bomb blew up in a Shi'ite neighborhood in Doura in the south, killing three people and wounding six, police said.

More bombs ripped into the central Alawi area, Shaab and Shula in the north, all mainly Shi'ite areas, and a roadside bomb killed one and wounded five near the Sunni neighborhood of Adhamiya, police said.

An old woman wrapped in black was yelling and calling for her husband lost under the rubble after two bombs struck a wholesale vegetable market where they both worked.

"I cannot find my husband, I don't know if they took him out or not, I don't know," she said.

Violence in Iraq has ebbed since the height of sectarian slaughter in 2006-2007, when suicide bombers and hit squads targeted Sunni and Shi'ite communities in continual attacks that killed thousands of people.

Iraq is still fighting a stubborn, lower-grade insurgency with Sunni Islamists tied to al Qaeda and Shi'ite militias, who U.S. officials say are backed by Iran, staging daily attacks.

"We live in complicated circumstances, a complicated political scene and there is a conspiracy on Iraq from within," Baghdad security operations spokesman Qassim al-Moussawi said.

U.S. TROOPS OUT ONLY DAYS AGO

The last few thousand American troops left Iraq over the weekend, nearly nine years after the invasion that toppled Sunni dictator Saddam Hussein. Many Iraqis had said they feared a return to sectarian violence without a U.S. military buffer.

Just days after the withdrawal, Iraq's fragile power-sharing government is grappling with its worst turmoil since its formation a year ago. Shi'ite, Sunni and Kurdish blocs share out government posts in a unwieldy system that has been impaired by political infighting since it began.

This week, Maliki called for the arrest of Sunni Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi on charges he organized assassinations and bombings, and he asked parliament to fire his Sunni deputy Saleh al-Mutlaq after he likened Maliki to Saddam.

Hashemi, who has denied the accusations, has taken refuge in Iraq's semi-autonomous Kurdish region where he is unlikely to be handed over to the Shi'ite-led government in Baghdad.

The moves against the senior Sunni leaders have fanned sectarian fires anew because Sunnis fear the prime minister wants to consolidate Shi'ite domination over the country.

Iraq's Sunni minority have felt marginalized since the rise of the Shi'ite majority in Iraq after the 2003 invasion. Many Sunnis feel they have been shunted aside in the power-sharing agreement that Washington touts as a young democracy.

Thursday's attacks were the first major assault in Baghdad since November, when three bombs exploded in a commercial district and another blast hit the city's western outskirts on Saturday, killing at least 13 people.

In October, bomb attacks on a busy commercial street in northeastern Baghdad killed at least 30, with scores wounded.

(Additional reporting by Aseel Kami; Writing by Patrick Markey and Rania El Gamal; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

Multiple bomb blasts kill 57 in Iraq

Press TV, Thu Dec 22, 2011 7:58AM GMT

Smoke rises from the site of a bombing in central Baghdad on December 22, 2011. Fifty-seven people have been killed and scores of others injured in multiple bomb explosions in the Iraqi capital city of Baghdad, an official says.

Ziad Tariq, spokesperson for the Iraqi health ministry, said people 57 were killed and 176 were injured in 10 bombing attacks that rocked nine neighborhoods of the capital on Thursday morning.

The attacks were carried out in the Allawi, Bab al-Muatham and Karrada districts of central Baghdad, the Adhamiyah, Shuala and Shaab neighborhoods in the north, Jadriyah in the east, Ghazaliyah in the west and Amal and Dura in the south.

The deadly incidents in Iraq took place at a time that the country is experiencing a critical situation.

On Monday, the Iraqi interior ministry issued an arrest warrant for Vice President Tariq al-Hashemi after three of his bodyguards made confessions of taking orders from him to carry out terrorist attacks in the country over the past years.

Hashemi has denied allegations of involvement in acts of terrorism.

The Iraqiya party, which holds 82 of the 325 seats in the Iraqi parliament, issued a statement on Saturday, saying the bloc “is suspending its participation in parliament from Saturday and calling for the opening of a round-table to find a solution that will support democracy and civil institutions.”

The bloc accuses Maliki of “monopolizing all decision-making.”

On Wednesday, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki warned that he would appoint new cabinet ministers if the current ministers from the Iraqiya party do not attend cabinet sessions.

The Iraqi premier has also called on different political groups help resolve the crisis in the country.

Iraqiya is a political coalition of Hashimi's Renewal List party, the Iraqi National List led by former Prime Minister Iyad Allawi and the Iraqi Front for National Dialogue led by Saleh al-Mutlaq.

HSN/MA

Petraeus Back from Baghdad

CNN, December 21, 2011

By Arwa Damon and Wolf Blitzer

CIA Director David Petraeus has just returned from a quick visit to Iraq, sources tell CNN. The trip was initially intended as a chance for Petraeus to thank the CIA team in Iraq as the US completed its withdrawal of forces, an official said. (Read Blitzer's blog on Petraeus' secret trip)

The trip, though previously planned, comes as Iraq is mired in political turmoil. The country’s Sunni Vice President Tariq al-Hashemi, is in the semi-autonomous Kurdish region as he fights charges from Maliki’s government that he organized a death squad targeting government and military officials.

Petraeus, a former commander in Iraq, also met with the Iraq’s Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, the Speaker of the Parliament and Minister of Finance, both senior members of the mostly Sunni-backed Iraqiya political bloc, which Hashemi is also a member of. Petraeus then traveled to northern Iraq to meet with senior Kurdish leadership.

The content of Petraeus discussions were not disclosed. The CIA and the U.S. embassy in Baghdad would not comment.

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