At least 21 Iraqis were killed and nine more were wounded as Ramadan began for Sunni Muslims. Meanwhile, Iraq’s top army officer, Lieutenant General Babakar Zebari, warned that the U.S. pullout is premature and asked politicians to find a way to fill the void after 2011. Ideally, he wants American troops to stay until 2020. Outgoing Ambassador Christopher Hill, however, is more hopeful and thinks the political deadlock over the premiership might break soon.
Eight soldiers were killed and four more were wounded when they entered a booby-trapped building in Saidiya. Gunmen first entered the home, where they killed three people, then sent their children out to lure the soldiers back to the home.
In Baghdad, gunmen killed a female doctor, who was the head of a maternity hospital, at her home in the al-Arasat neighborhood; the men fled with about $215,000 and left her family bound and blindfolded. A sticky bomb killed a soldier and a wounded a civilian in Jamiaa. Mortars fell in Karrada where they wounded a woman and child. A body was discovered in Jihad. Bombs in Taji and Mayseloon Square left no casualties.
In Mosul, two bodies were discovered. Police arrested two men when they raided a goldsmith’s property where they found documents belonging to the Islamic State of Iraq and seven bronze antiquities.
Five Sahwa were killed during a blast at a checkpoint in Dhuluiya.
A bomb in Tal Afar wounded a policeman and his father.
Four Katyusha rockets stuck Camp Echo near Diwaniya.
An al-Qaeda leader was arrested in Qahira.
In Turkey, a fire ignited by a bomb continues to halt the flow of oil on the Kirkuk-Ceyhan pipeline, which carries a quarter of Iraq’s oil exports. Two people were so far killed and another was wounded in the fire. Yesterday’s blast was blamed on the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).
