Pat Dollard | Young Americans

This morning, noticing a strange trend out of Iraq today, I posted this. A few hours later, the NY Times posted this, confirming my interpretation of the days events:

And when you read the article, notice also how Iraqis call the terrorists, “terrorists”. In the MSM, they are romanticized as “militants” and “insurgents”, and routinely have their very existence questioned by being referred to as “suspected militants”. I have noticed this happen even when the military’s press releases identify them as terrorists or gunmen. and even give details of certain individuals past terrorist activities. The AP will lie and say the press release said “suspected terrorist”, or “suspected of committing”, when I’ve read the press release myself and it says “terrorist” or “committed”. )

NY Times:

BAGHDAD, Sept. 25 — Sunni extremists appear to have begun a systematic campaign to assassinate police chiefs, police officers and other Interior Ministry officials throughout Iraq, with at least 10 attacks in the last 48 hours.

Eight policemen have been killed, among them the police chief of Baquba in Diyala Province. There were assassination attempts on two other police chiefs, which left one of them in critical condition. About 30 police officers have been injured during the attacks, according to reports from local security offices.

“We warned the government just a few days ago that there is a new plan by terrorist groups to target senior governmental officials, and particularly Interior Ministry officials,” said Maj. Gen. Hussein Kamal, deputy interior minister for information and national investigations.

“It seems that the terrorists’ plan has already started and this explains the incidents that happened recently in Kut, Diyala, Kirkuk and Mosul,” he said.

In the last two days, attackers have struck in across the country. In addition to the four areas mentioned by Major General Kamal, local security forces reported attacks against the police in Samarra, Basra, and Falluja.

The campaign of attacks was announced on an Islamist Web site on Sept. 15 just two days after the killing of a Sunni Arab leader of the tribal Awakening Council, which has begun to fight Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, a homegrown extremist group whose leadership has foreign ties, according to American intelligence officials.

The Sunni extremists said they would begin a new series of attacks to mark the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

Several of the attackers were suicide bombers either driving cars or wearing suicide vests. The most lethal attack occurred Monday evening in Diyala when a man wearing a suicide vest walked into a reconciliation meeting at a Shiite mosque in Shifta, a suburb of the provincial capital, and detonated his vest as several hundred people were drinking tea after breaking the traditional daylong Ramadan fast, according to an American military report.

The police chief of Baquba, Brig. Ali Dlyan, was killed along with 11 other police officers, two of whom were senior members of the force. The total number of dead climbed today, but there was some uncertainty about that number, with the American military saying that 24 had died and 37 had been were wounded. But Diyala health officials believe the death toll was somewhat lower; they said that they received 18 bodies and that the Baquba hospital received 27 wounded.

The governor of Diyala Province, who was injured in the attack, was saved from death by his bodyguards, who saw the bomber making for the governor and threw themselves on top of him. All five of his bodyguards died and the governor had to be dragged from underneath them, said a provincial official in Diyala who rushed to the scene to help with the rescue, but asked not to be identified.

In Diyala today, the bodies of three policemen were found.

In Basra, a suicide car bomber attacked the police headquarters during the morning check-in, killing three people including a policeman and injuring 17 police officers.

In the northern city of Mosul this afternoon, a suicide bomber wearing an explosive belt attacked Col. Abid Hamid, the police chief of Abu Tamam, an area of Mosul, while he was doing a field visit to one of the district’s fuel stations, said Brig. Said al-Jubori, the police media officer for Ninevah Province. The police chief was reported to be in critical condition.

“The main reason behind all these attacks is the signs of improvement of the security situation mentioned in the Crocker-Petreus report,” said Tahseen al-Sheikhly, a spokesman for the Iraqi security forces, referring to the report by the American ambassador, Ryan C. Crocker, and Gen. David H. Petraeus on the increased levels of the American and Iraqi troops in Baghdad and surrounding areas

“The terrorist groups are just trying to say to the world that the report did not reflect the reality of the security situation in Iraq,” Mr. Sheikhly said. “We expect these attacks to increase in the coming days because the terrorists want to tell the world that they still exist although in fact they have failed.”

In Kirkuk on Monday, a roadside bomb detonated near the convoy of Maj. Gen. Jamal Taher, the city’s police chief. It failed to kill him, but injured one of his bodyguards.

In Samarra on Monday, a local citizens group that had gathered at the mayor’s house to organize opposition to Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia was attacked by gunmen. Four people were badly injured. Mayors in Iraq traditionally have been employees of the Interior Ministry although that has begun to change.

.In Kut, the provincial capital of Wasit Province, the provincial police chief, Abdul Haneen al-Amara, who assumed his position on Sept. 9, survived an assassination attempt on Sunday night. Gunmen opened fire on his convoy as it was driving through the northeastern part of the province.

Eight bodies were found in Baghdad today.

Ali Hamdani contributed reporting from Baghdad, and Iraqi employees of The New York Times from Diyala, Basra, Mosul, Kut, Kirkuk, Samarra and Tikrit.