‘‘We want to know: What were the thousands of policemen and soldiers in Baghdad doing today while the terrorists were roaming the city and spreading violence?’’ al-Tamimi said.
It was the latest of a series of large-scale attacks that insurgents have launched every few weeks since the last US troops left Iraq in mid-December at the end of a nearly nine-year war.
The ongoing nature of the violence and the fact that insurgents are able to operate over a wide swath of Iraq to carry out a variety of attacks shows the country is still deeply unstable, despite government assurances it could protect itself when American troops left in December.
The violence points to a dangerous gap in the abilities of the Iraqi security forces that had particularly worried the departing US military: their ability to gather intelligence on insurgent groups and stop them before they launch such deadly attacks. Gathering information on militants and their networks was a key area in which the US military helped their Iraqi counterparts.
Shortly after the withdrawal, a major political crisis with sectarian undertones erupted as well when Shiite-dominated authorities sought to arrest Sunni Vice President Tariq al-Hashemi on allegations he commandeered death squads targeting security forces and government officials.
While no group immediately claimed responsibility for the latest attacks, targeting security officials is a hallmark of Al Qaeda in Iraq. Such attacks achieve two goals: undermining the public’s confidence in the ability of their policemen and soldiers to protect everyday citizens and discourage people from joining or helping the security forces.
Al Qaeda claimed responsibility for a similar strike on Jan. 5 that killed 78 people and mostly targeted Shiite pilgrims in Baghdad, in what was the worst day of violence to shake Iraq in months.
