At least three Iraqis were killed and 10 more were wounded in light violence. Despite the seemingly quiet news day, one story underscored the deterioration of news reporting in Iraq.
The director of Baghdad’s mortuary services, Munged Salahaddin, warned that the morgue is receiving unidentified bodies at the same rate as in 2007. Currently, the morgue is holding 500 bodies awaiting identification. Most of them were shot to death.
Furthermore, gunmen using silencers have shot well over 600 people, both unidentified and otherwise, across Iraq since June. If these figures are accurate, they point to an underreporting of casualty figures in the press. While figures between Iraqi agencies and the press often conflict with each other, the differences aren’t usually this dramatic.
At the height of sectarian violence, dozens of dumped bodies were recovered everyday from the streets of Baghdad alone. At the time, however, there were more foreign reporters physically in Iraq. Although there are many Iraqi journalists in the country, they fear reprisals from both militant groups and the Iraqi government. Just this week Reporters Without Borders criticized Iraqi security forces for roughing up many reporters.
Iraqi women escaping forced marriages to al-Qaeda members are reporting the abductions of their sons by their husbands. Dozens of children have disappeared, and the fear is that their fathers may be indoctrinating the boys into al-Qaeda.
In Baghdad, a failed bank robbery left three dead and six wounded in Bayaa; three robbers were captured. A civilian was wounded when a bomb left on a car traveling in an Interior Ministry motorcade exploded.
Three civilians were wounded in a mortar attack in Hilla. One was an 80-year-old woman.
In Mosul, a bomb at the Faculty of Medicine left no casualties.
Twenty-three suspects were arrested across Diyala province.
Twenty-four suspects were captured across Basra province.
The prime minister personally ordered the release of a detainee involved in a deadly raid in Jubail.
The Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) extended their unilateral cease-fire for another month in hopes of drawing Turkey to peace talks. Because the rebel group uses parts of Iraqi Kurdistan for base camps, Turkey often launches operations into northern Iraq.
