“250 killed and wounded, 21 car bombs, 49 explosive devices — in seven cities north to south.”
These numbers are no longer shocking in Iraq or anywhere else when reading about Iraq. For the figures that the media circulated last Sunday [April 14] about the carnage that befell Baghdad, Babil, Dhi Qar, Saladin, Anbar, Kirkuk, Diyala and Mosul, all at once, seem to be copied from massacres from the recent and distant past. They are similar in execution and in the size of their losses, even in their targets and the faction that claimed responsiblity: al-Qaeda. They are also comparable in the security authorities’ inability to thwart them.