More than a thousand Iraqis died and over two thousand were injured in outbreaks of violence across Iraq in May, according to a UN body. It’s the highest monthly death toll in the country since 2008.
One thousand and forty-five Iraqis were killed in May, according
to estimates released by the United Nations Assistance Mission
for Iraq (UNAMI). Eighty-two of those were members of the Iraqi
Security Forces, with the bulk of the casualties registered among
civilians.
The capital Baghdad was most affected by acts of violence, with
homemade explosives, car blasts and suicide bombings responsible
for the vast majority of deaths. The terror attacks were carried
out in both Shiite and Sunni neighborhoods.
The UNAMI death toll figure for May is far higher than the April
700 casualties, which previously were described as the
record-breaking figure since the country’s sectarian violence
spike of 2006-2007. The escalating death toll sparks fears that
sectarian unrest in the country might be turning into a civil
war.
“That is a sad record. Iraqi political leaders must act
immediately to stop this intolerable bloodshed,” said Martin
Kobler, the Special Representative of the United Nations
Secretary-General (SRSG) for Iraq.
The day before the UN figures were released, the Baghdad
authorities banned temporary license plates on cars in an attempt
to avert car bombings, the cause for much of the casualties in
the recent outbreaks of violence. The cars with temporary black
plates have quite often been used for attacks, as they are more
difficult to trace.
The recent escalation in violence is seen as instigated by the
late April crackdown on the Sunni protesters by security
forces, controlled by the Shiite-dominated government.
Political analyst Chris Bambery, who warned in April the number
of casualties in Iraq would only rise in the near future, lays
the blame for growing sectarian unrest in the region on the US
decision to separate Iraq into Kurdish, Shiite and Sunni areas.
“It is based on the decision by the Americans when they
occupied Iraq to separate Iraq off into these three areas. Iraq
has been a unified country for a long time. And yet doing so
based on the sectarian headcount by dividing the country up,
particularly be excluding the Sunni from having any control of
the oil fields was a recipe of the sectarian conflict. And that’s
what we’ve seen,” Bambery told RT.
Ten years after the US announced its victory
in the war with Iraq, the country is immersed in violence. The
withdrawal of US troops in 2011 saw sectarian tension between
Sunnis and Shiites escalate. What now contributes to the
instability in the region is the Syrian conflict, as “Iraq is
becoming very intertwined with what is going on in Syria with
almost an open border between the two countries there,” according
to the analyst.
‘Al-Qaeda cell producing chemical weapons’ busted
Not long after the casualty figures were released, Iraq’s Defense
Ministry announced that it captured an alleged Al-Qaeda cell,
which attempted to produce chemical weapons such as mustard gas.
"There are some confessions about organized cells to smuggle
them [weapons] outside Iraq through a neighboring country in
order to target Europe, America and different capitals,"
said Mohammed Askari, a Defense Ministry spokesman, as cited by
Reuters.
Journalists were shown bottles containing chemicals, some
laboratory equipment and also toy remote-controlled helicopters,
which according to officials could be used to distribute gas.
Three men dressed in yellow jumpsuits, their faces masked, were
presented to reporters as suspects.
The announcement comes amid an ongoing investigation into alleged
use of chemical weapons in neighboring Syria.