Eight people, including four policemen, and 27 wounded Tuesday when insurgents burst into the offices of the Diyala provincial council north of Baghdad, police said.
The attack was similar to the assault in March on the officials of the council in Salahuddin province in Saddam Hussein’s hometown of Tikrit. That attack claimed the lives of more than 50.
The attack began when a suicide bomber set off his explosives at the council buildings’ main checkpoint. Shortly after, a car bomb exploded nearby and four insurgents, wearing police uniforms, rushed into the building and began shooting.
Also, from Peter Van Buren’s blog We Meant Well (listen to his interview with Scott Horton on Antiwar Radio), we have this graph of violence in Iraq over the last six months:
He also notes a list of recent problems with Iraqi democracy, as well as heightened clashes between pro-Malaki (Shiite) forces and anti-Malaki forces (Sunni). Despite the media keeping all this on the downlow, it’s evident that an upcoming “departure” from Iraq is unlikely to come to fruition given promises about stability being a precursor to withdrawal. This is what happens with American wars though, they never end.
