Despite car bombings that killed 80 people and the deaths of six more US troops over the weekend, a joint US-Iraqi military operation in Baghdad seems to be making a difference.
The Los Angeles Times reports that after last month's record total of 1,800 bodies reported in local morgues, August is on target to record only about one-quarter of that total.
US Army Maj. Gen. James D. Thurman, commander of military forces in Baghdad, attributed the capital's declining violence to a sweep involving 8,000 US soldiers and 3,000 Iraqi troops aimed at stopping sectarian violence.
The troops, many redeployed from hot spots around Iraq, have patrolled the capital, searched houses and made arrests since Aug. 7. Similar sweeps in Baghdad and elsewhere since the US-led invasion in 2003 have reduced violence. But the bloodshed would increase when US forces moved on.
US military leaders are hoping, however, that once the amibitious security sweep ends, Iraqi police working with US training teams will be able to keep the new security plan in placed. But the Times reports that many residents of the city see the "notoriously corrupt and sectarian police forces" as part of the problem.
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Sunday on CNN, Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki told "Late Edition" that the decline in deaths was a sign that his country was not in the middle of a civil war, and that violence in his country was abating. "In Iraq, we'll never be in civil war," he said during the interview.
But the Associated Press reports that Mr. al-Maliki's claims were undermined by one of the most violent weekends in recent weeks in Baghdad, marked by a car bomb that exploded in a market on Monday morning, killing as many as 50 people. And there are other signs that despite the decline in the overall death total, sectarian tensions continue in Baghdad.
McClatchy Newspapers report that Shiites who live in Sunni neighborhoods are swapping their houses with Sunnis who live in predominately Shiite areas.
In a city where no one wants to buy a house and renting is too expensive for most, house swapping has become an ideal compromise for some. The old family introduces the new family to the community, and both sides vow to take care of their new home. It's also provided a way for politicians to garner support by providing services to newly relocated Shiites that the government cannot.
Supporters of radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr have been particularly adept, using their control of the ministries of education, which oversees schools, and trade, which oversees the country's rationing system, to make sure families are comfortable in their new homes.
The Los Angeles Times reports that if a full fledged civil war does break out, the Tigris River could become "the line that none dare cross," acting as "green line, separating Sunni-dominated west Baghdad from the Shiite-controlled east." And while The Economist reports that the unemployment rate is 40 percent in Iraq, The Associated Press reports that there is one profession enjoying a boom – funeral directors.
With killings on the rise, coffin maker Abbas Hussein Mohammed has opened a new shop to cope with the demand.
"Our business is booming day after day with each roadside bomb or car bomb and with the ongoing sectarian killings," Abbas said as he showed off his wooden coffins inside his tiny shop on Baghdad's Haifa Street.
"During the Saddam era, we used to do one or two coffins a day and the price ranged between $5 to $10," Mohammed said. Now he produces an average of 10 to 15 coffins a day and charges about $50 for each of them.
And a Washington Post interview with a Mahdi Army commander suggests that, while the number of killings has gone down because of the overwhelming US security presence in Bagdad this month, militant groups see no problem with killing Sunnis.
"The takfiris, the ones who kill, they should be killed," said [the Mahdi Army commander called] the Sheik, using a term commonly employed by Shiites for violent Sunni extremists. "Also the Saddamists. Whose hands are stained with blood, they are sentenced to death ... If we catch any of them, the takfiris, Saddamists, bombers, we don't hand them over to police. He could be freed the next day," the Sheik said.
The captured men get a rapid interrogation, he added. They are asked, "How do you come here? Who is working with you? Which organization is supporting you?
"We get a full confession," he said. "Once we do, we know what to do with them."
Meanwhile, AP reports that the number of National Guard and Reserve troops killed in Iraq has dropped this year. The decline is credited to two main factors: far fewer numbers of these troops in Iraq (Guard and Reserve troops now only comprise 20 percent of troops in Iraq, as opposed to 40 percent a year ago) and a shift in focus by insurgents and terrorists to attack Iraqi civilians more than US troops. The average daily death total for all US troops in Iraq has declined from just over two per day to just under two per day.
- Homicide charges rare in Iraq War (Washington Post)
- Silent Sistani: Is the country's most potent voice losing its influence? (Newsweek)
- The terrorists ride high (Townhall.org)
- British troops use up ammo as war with Taliban claims 14th life (Telegraph.co.uk)
Feedback appreciated. E-mail Tom Regan.
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