New attacks in Iraq kill 5 Sunni militiamen.

New attacks in Iraq kill 5 Sunni militiamen.

Iraqi boys look inside of a destroyed vehicle the day after a car bomb
attack near an outdoor market in Baghdad's Shiite neighborhood of Sadr City, Iraq, Friday, May 16, 2014. Bombings and shootings

BAGHDAD | AP | 16 may 2014 : :  Separate attacks in Iraq killed five members of an anti-militant Sunni militia on Friday as an al-Qaida splinter group claimed responsibility for a spate of Baghdad bombings that killed at least 19 people the day before.

Insurgents frequently attack members of the Sunni militia, also known as Sahwa, which joined forces with U.S. troops at the height of the Iraq war to fight al-Qaida.

In one of Friday's attacks, gunmen opened fire from a speeding car, targeting a security checkpoint manned by anti-al-Qaida Sunni fighters near the town of Balad, 80 kilometers (50 miles) north of Baghdad. Three Sunni fighters were killed and four were wounded in that attack, police officials said.

Hours later, a roadside bomb targeted a patrol of Sunni militiamen just north of Baghdad, killing two fighters and wounding four.

Medical officials confirmed the casualty figures. All officials spoke on condition of anonymity as they were not authorized to talk to media.

Also Friday, in a statement posted on a militant website, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant said it had carried out attacks in the Iraqi capital the day before in retaliation for the military operations against the city of Fallujah in western Anbar province. Fallujah has been in the hands of the Islamic State and other Sunni insurgents since last December.

Thursday's violence included bombings near several government offices and an outdoor market in Baghdad.

The statement's authenticity could not be independently verified but it appeared on websites commonly used by the group.

"We tell the spiteful Shiites and their government... that our lions are craving the taste of your flesh and blood," it said.

Iraq has seen a spike in violence since April 2013, with the death toll climbing to its highest levels since the worst of the country's sectarian bloodletting in 2006-2008. The United Nations says violence killed 8,868 people in 2013. ( Courtesy : Yahoo News ) 

Iraq suicide blasts 27 including children killed.

27 including children killed in Iraq suicide blasts.

An Iraqi soldier stands guard a road in Baghdad
 northern district of Kadhimiya as Shiite pilgrims
 walk toa shrine to commemorate the death of
 Imam Mohammed al-Jawad, the ninth
 Shiite imam.  Photo: AFP/GETTY

Reuters | 06 Oct 2013 :: Suicide car bombers attacked an elementary school and a police station in a small northern Iraqi village on Sunday while another on foot detonated his payload among Shiite pilgrims in Baghdad, killing at least 27 people including children, officials said.

The attacks are the latest in a relentless wave of killing that has made for Iraq's deadliest outburst of violence since 2008. The mounting death tolls are raising fears that the country is falling back into the spiral of violence that brought it to the edge of civil war in the years after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion.

Sunday's blasts began around 9:30 a.m. in the Shiite Turkomen village of Qabak, just outside the town of Tal Afar. The area around the stricken village has long been a hotbed for hard-to-rout Sunni insurgents and a corridor for extremist fighters arriving from nearby Syria.

One car bomb in the tiny village targeted an elementary school while children ages 6 to 12 were in class as another struck a nearby police station, Tal Afar mayor Abdul Aal al-Obeidi said.

The dead included 12 children, the school principal and two policemen. Another 90 people were wounded, he said.

The village is home to only about 200 residents, and part of the single-story school collapsed as a result of the blast, he said. Tal Afar is 420 kilometers (260 miles) northwest of Baghdad.

"We and Iraq are plagued by al-Qaida," al-Obeidi said. "It's a tragedy. These innocent children were here to study. What sins did these children commit?"

Another suicide bomber, this time on foot, blew himself up hours later as Shiite pilgrims walked through the largely Sunni neighborhood of Waziriyah in the north of the Iraqi capital.

At least 12 people were killed and 23 wounded in that attack, according to police and hospital officials. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to brief reporters.(Courtesy:The Indian Express)

Al-Qaeda set up anti-drone cells, reveal secret U.S. documents.

Al-Qaeda set up anti-drone cells, reveal 

secret U.S. documents.

A banner protesting U.S. drone attacks on Yemen earlier this year. (AFP)

Al Arabia  | AFP | 04 Sep 2013 :: Al-Qaeda’s leaders have been bolstering their anti-drone efforts, setting up cells of engineers to shoot down, disable or hijack U.S. drones, the Washington Post reported late Tuesday classified documents.

The militant leadership is “hoping to exploit the technological vulnerabilities of a weapons system that has inflicted huge losses against the terrorist network,” the Post said online.

“Although there is no evidence that Al-Qaeda has forced a drone crash or successfully interfered with flight operations, U.S. intelligence officials have closely tracked the group’s persistent efforts to develop a counterdrone strategy since 2010,” the report said, citing the secret documents.

The newspaper also reported that al-Qaeda commanders are keen to achieve “a technological breakthrough (that) could curb the U.S. drone campaign, which has killed an estimated 3,000 people over the past decade.”

Drone strikes have forced al-Qaeda operatives to limit their movements in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Yemen, Somalia and other places.(Courtesy:Al Arabia)

Iraq market car bomb kills 16.

Iraq market car bomb kills 16.

SAMARRA  | 30 Aug 2013 :: A car bomb ripped through a popular fruit and vegetable market north of Baghdad on Thursday, killing at least 16 people as Iraqis searched for cut-price groceries.

The blast, which also wounded 25 people, struck in the predominantly Sunni Arab city of Samarra at about 6:45 pm (1545 GMT). It came a day after a wave of nationwide violence – including a spate of bombings in the Iraqi capital – killed at least 75 people. The attack was the latest in a surge of unrest, with more than 3,700 people killed so far this year.

It follows security operations targeting militants in Baghdad and to the north and west, though the government has faced charges of not dealing with the root causes of the country’s worst violence since 2008.

Thursday evening’s attack struck the Samarra market, locally known as the Mraydi, at a time when struggling Iraqis typically frequent it in order to take advantage of reduced prices as surplus stock is sold before closing.

In all, 16 people were killed, including three women and two children, and 25 people were wounded, a police officer and a doctor said.

The market, the city’s biggest grocery shopping area, lies in the Jiberia neighbourhood of eastern Samarra.

Attacks elsewhere in Iraq left three others dead — a soldier, a civilian and a militant who was shot dead as he was trying to plant a roadside bomb.

On Wednesday, at least 75 people were killed and more than 200 wounded in a wave of shootings and bombings across Iraq, with the violence mostly targeting the country’s Shiite Muslim majority.

No group immediately claimed responsibility for the latest bloodshed.

Sunni militants linked to Al-Qaeda frequently trigger car bombs in the middle of crowded areas packed with civilians, ostensibly in a bid to undermine confidence in the Shiite-led authorities and security forces.

Iraq has seen a marked rise in the level of violence this year, coinciding with demonstrations by the Sunni Arab minority against alleged ill treatment at the hands of the Shiite-led government and security forces.

More than 600 people have already been killed so far this month, according to an AFP tally.

Though diplomats and analysts have urged broad-reaching moves to tackle Sunni frustrations, which they say give militant groups room to recruit and carry out attacks, Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has vowed to press on with an anti-militant campaign.

Officials say security forces have dismantled militant training camps and bomb-making sites, arrested hundreds of alleged insurgents and killed dozens of others in recent weeks.(Courtesy:The Nation)

US drones kill 12 in 3 airstrikes: Yemen official.

US drones kill 12 in 3 airstrikes: Yemen official.

File photo shows a Predator B unmanned aircraft taxis at the
 Naval Air Station in Corpus Christi, Texas. Two U.S. drone strike
 killed a total of nine suspected al-Qaida militants on Thursday,
 Aug. 8, 2013, a Yemeni military official said, the sixth and seventh
such attacks in less than two weeks as the Arab nation
is on high alert against terrorism.

YEMEN | AP | 09 AUG 2013 ::  The U.S. has sharply escalated its drone war in Yemen, with military officials in the Arab country reporting 34 suspected al-Qaida militants killed in less than two weeks, including three strikes on Thursday alone in which a dozen died.

The action against al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, as the Yemen branch is known, comes amid a global terror alert issued by Washington. One Mideast official says the uptick is due to its leaders leaving themselves more vulnerable by moving from their normal hideouts toward areas where they could carry out attacks.

The U.S. and Britain evacuated diplomatic staff from the capital of Sanaa this week after learning of a threatened attack that prompted Washington to close temporarily 19 diplomatic posts in the Middle East and Africa.

On Thursday, the U.S. State Department warned Americans not to travel to Pakistan and ordered nonessential government personnel to leave the U.S. Consulate in Lahore because of a specific threat to that diplomatic mission.

Thursday’s first reported drone attack hit a car carrying suspected militants in the district of Wadi Ubaidah, about 175 kilometers (109 miles) east of Sanaa, and killed six, a security official said.

Badly burned bodies lay beside their vehicle, according to the official. Five of the dead were Yemenis, while the sixth was believed to be of another Arab nationality, he said.

The second drone attack killed three alleged militants in the al-Ayoon area of Hadramawt province in the south, the official said. The third, also in Hadramawt province, killed three more suspected militants in the al-Qutn area, he added.(Courtesy:The Hindu)

Al-Qaida claims responsibility for Iraq bombings.

Al-Qaida claims responsibility for Iraq bombings.

Baghdad | AP | 30 Jul 2013 :: Al-Qaida’s branch in Iraq has claimed responsibility for a wave of bombings across the country that killed at least 58 people, most of them in predominantly Shiite Muslim areas.

The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, the al-Qaida affiliate in Iraq, said on a website commonly used by Sunni extremists. The authenticity of the statement could not be independently verified, but its style was consistent with earlier al-Qaida statements.

The blasts on Monday, 18 in all, were the latest in a surge of bloodshed that has swept across Iraq since April, killing more than 3,000 people and worsening the already strained ties between Iraq’s Sunni minority and the Shiite-led government. In July alone, nearly 700 people have been killed in insurgent attacks, according to an Associated Press count.

The scale and pace of the violence have fanned fears of a return to the widespread sectarian bloodletting that pushed Iraq to the brink of civil war after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion.

Al-Qaida’s Iraqi branch and other Sunni insurgent groups have long targeted the country’s security forces in a bid to undermine faith in the Shiite-led government and to stir up sectarian tensions. But the group has grown emboldened in recent months following a government crackdown on Sunni protests calling for better treatment by the State.

Last week, the group carried out simultaneous attacks on two prisons that allowed hundreds of inmates, including senior al-Qaida members, to escape and left dozens of people dead.

A spokesman for al-Qaida in Iraq, Abu Mohammed al-Adnani, described the jailbreak as a “great victory” in an audio message posted on the same website on Tuesday.

Last year, al-Qaida launched a campaign called “Breaking the Walls” that made freeing its imprisoned members a top priority. Al-Adnani said that effort came to a close with the twin attacks on the prison, and announced a new campaign dubbed “The Harvest of the Soldiers.” He did not specify what the new operation aims to achieve.(Courtesy:The Hindu)

Hundreds escape in deadly Iraq prison raids.

Hundreds escape in deadly Iraq prison raids.

BAGHDAD | 22 Jul 2013 ::  Hundreds of Iraqi inmates escaped after insurgents armed with mortars and machines guns launched coordinated late-night assaults on two high-security prisons, sparking gun battles that left dozens of people dead, officials said Monday. 

In a separate attack in northern Iraq, a suicide car bomber targeted an army convoy on Monday, killing 13 people, officials said. 

The jailbreaks targeted prisons in Taji and Abu Ghraib, which are home to thousands of prisoners including convicted al-Qaida militants. Iraq has seen a surge of violence since April, and the assaults on the prison laid bare the degree to which security has eroded in the country in recent months. 

Three lawmakers on the parliament's security and defense committee said prisoners were able to escape from Abu Ghraib during the attack. 

Lawmakers Hakim al-Zamili and Shawan Mohammed Taha each said that about 500 prisoners managed to escape and that a manhunt is under way, although al-Zamili said many of them have since been captured or killed. 

"This big security failure shows that the top security commanders have failed to sort out any solutions for the ongoing security deterioration," Taha said. "The terrorists, not the security forces, are now taking the initiative." 

Another lawmaker, Iskandar Witwit, confirmed that some prisoners escaped but did not say how many. 

Earlier, interior ministry spokesman Saad Maan Ibrahim said that no prisoners had escaped. 

Justice ministry spokesman Wissam al-Firaiji said a total of 21 prisoners were killed and another 25 wounded during the fighting at both facilities. He was unable to confirm reports that prisoners had escaped, saying authorities were still counting the inmates. (Courtesy:The Times of India)

Syrian rebels, al-Qaida fighters battle in Aleppo .

Former allies have turned against each other and are fighting for control of a key checkpoint in the northern city

Buildings damaged by Syrian government airstrikes
 and shelling, in the Salah al-Din neighborhood of Aleppo

BEIRUT | AP | 13 Jul 2013 ::   Activists say Syrian rebels and fighters from an al-Qaida-linked group have turned their guns on each other and are fighting for control of a key checkpoint in the northern city of Aleppo.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says Saturday’s clashes are focused on the strategic checkpoint in Aleppo’s Bustan al-Qasr district.

The checkpoint is the only gateway between rebel-held eastern districts and the city’s western areas, controlled by President Bashar Assad’s troops.

Earlier this week, al-Qaida-linked militants seized the checkpoint and closed it for several days, cutting the flow of food supplies to the city and triggering the confrontation.

Residents angry over the blockade have staged protests against the anti-Assad forces as food prices soar in Aleppo at the start of the Muslim Holy month of Ramadan.(Courtesy:The Time of Israel)