Light violence left four Iraqis killed and eight more wounded, but a guerilla war on Iraq’s northern border could be intensifying. The lack of a stable government following March elections has left Iraq unable to properly deal with events on its northern flank and forced Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to criticize Iraq’s regional neighbors for meddling in Iraqi politics.
Kurdish rebels promised to continue attacks in Turkey until their demands for increased rights and autonomy are met. Turkish forces meanwhile arrested 27 suspects in connection with yesterday’s deadly bombing in Istanbul. Iranian troops stepped up their operations in northern Iraq as well.
Kurdish rebels from the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) and its offshoot, the Partiya Jiyana Azad a Kurdistanê (PJAK), use sparsely populated Kurdish Iraq for their encampments. They would like to see an independent Kurdistan across Iraq, Iran, Turkey and neighboring countries. Some analysts wonder if there is tacit acceptance of the foreign operations against the rebel groups, but it is equally possible that the Iraqi government is too weak to prevent such incursions.
Prime Minister Maliki may have accepted the electrical minister’s resignation, but protests continued. About 1,000 people demonstrated in Baquba, where the provincial electricity director blamed Iran for the shortages.
In Mosul, Interior Minister Jawad Al-Bolani discussed the return of detainees from a secret prison with the provincial council. Two civilians were wounded in a hand grenade blast.
On a highway in Zummar, a U.S. vehicle accidentally struck a vehicle carrying an Iraqi family, killing three of them and wounding three more.
In Baghdad, a sticky bomb wounded a man and his wife. Police defused I.E.D.s planted under electrical towers. The Islamic State of Iraq took responsibility for a bank attack earlier this week.
Gunmen killed a man during a tribal dispute near Kirkuk.
The governor of Anbar ordered the Qaim hospital closed over threats to its personnel.
Six suspects were detained in Basra province.
Police in Garma were able to safely defuse bombs planted outside a policeman’s home.
