| 2011 Baghdad bombings | |
|---|---|
| Part of the Iraqi insurgency | |
| Location | Baghdad, Iraq |
| Date | 22 December 2011 (UTC+03:00) |
| Target | Civilian population; government offices |
Attack type | Suicide bombings, suicide car bombing, roadside bombs, sticky bombs, shooting |
| Deaths | 60 [1] to 72 [2] |
| Injured | 160 [3] to 217 [2] |
On 22 December 2011, a series of coordinated attacks occurred in Baghdad, Iraq, killing 69 people. [4] This was the first major attack following U.S. withdrawal from Iraq.
Iraqi officials reported at least 14 bombs went off in the capital, targeting a total of 11 neighborhoods. The Iraqi health ministry estimated 69 deaths and at least 169 wounded. [3] The majority of attacks occurred in Shiite areas, with the exception of an IED attack in the Sunni enclave of Adhamiyah. The worst attack, the only confirmed suicide bombing, took place in the Karrada district where a bomber drove an ambulance into a government anti-corruption office, killing 25 and injuring 62. Local policemen who were standing guard let the ambulance driver through because of the vehicle and his assurances that he was trying to reach a nearby hospital. [3]
The attacks were the first assault on the capital after the beginning of an apparent sectarian crisis in the government, with prime minister Nouri al-Maliki issuing an arrest warrant for vice president Tariq Al-Hashimi just days before the incidents. Journalists on the ground reported that security forces were blocking access to bombing sites [5] and that the usually packed Baghdad streets were almost deserted in the aftermath of the bombings. [6]
In addition to the attacks in the capital, several other attacks took place around the country, including gunmen killing a family of five and a local bodyguard in the city of Baqubah. Two of the family members were members of a Sunni Awakening council. Several shootings took place in the city of Mosul, leaving two dead and four injured. Other attacks left five people injured in Musayyib and Jurf Al-Sakhar south of the capital, and a body was found in Kirkuk. [7]
Later in the evening several explosions rocked Baghdad once more. Local journalists reported at least 4 more blasts happening around 10 o'clock local time. [8] The official death toll was raised to 72 after these further bombings, which included attacks in the Al-Shurtta and Al-Jihad districts in southwestern Baghdad. [2]
There were no immediate claims of responsibility for the bombings. [9] However, reports suggested the participation of al Qaeda's Sunni insurgents, as the attack mostly appeared to hit Shiite neighborhoods. [10] Vice-President al-Hashimi, while in hiding in Iraqi Kurdistan, accused elements in the Iraqi government of orchestrating the attacks. [11]
The Islamic State of Iraq, al Qaeda's political front, claimed the 22 Dec. Baghdad bombings in a statement released on jihadist Internet forums. The statement was translated by the SITE Intelligence Group. The claim was made on 26 December 2011; the day after another suicide attack killed seven policemen outside the Interior Ministry.
The Islamic State of Iraq said the attacks were the latest in what they described as a "series of special invasions ... to support the weak Sunnis in the prisons of the apostates and to retaliate for the captives who were executed by the Safavid [Persian or Iranian] government."
The term "Safavid government" refers to the government of Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki, a Shia politician who is accused by the Islamic State of Iraq of being under Iran's sphere of influence. Maliki has cracked down on Sunni politicians, and immediately after the US withdrawal of its troops this month, issued an arrest warrant for Vice President Tariq Hashemi. The move plunged Iraq into political crisis.
Islamic State of Iraq said the targets in the 22 December attack in Baghdad had been "accurately surveyed and explored," and the "operations were distributed between targeting security headquarters, military patrols and gatherings of the filthy ones of the al-Dajjal Army [Shia warlord Muqtada al Sadr's Mahdi Army]." The terror group said it "knows where and when to strike, and the mujahideen will never stand with their hands tied while the pernicious Iranian project showed its ugly face and what it wants with Sunnis in Iraq became obvious and exposed." The Islamic State of Iraq briefly described the suicide attack that targeted a security headquarters in Karrada in Baghdad, and said that details of the other attacks that day would be "published later on." [4] [12]
Ayad Allawi, leader of Iraqiya party, blamed the government for the violence. Allawi warned that "violence would continue as long as people are left out of the political process." [13]
U.S military officials have expressed concern about the "resurgence of al-Qaeda" as the American military left the country. [1]
Events in the year 2005 in Iraq.
The 18 April 2007 Baghdad bombings were a series of attacks that occurred when five car bombs exploded across Baghdad, the capital city of Iraq, on 18 April 2007, killing nearly 200 people.
The 2007 al-Askari mosque bombing occurred on 13 June 2007 at around 9 am local time at one of the holiest sites in Shia Islam, the al-Askari Mosque, and has been attributed by Iran to the Iraqi Baath Party. While there were no injuries or deaths reported, the mosque's two ten-story minarets were destroyed in the attacks. This was the second bombing of the mosque, with the first bombing occurring on 22 February 2006 and destroying the mosque's golden dome.
Tanzim Qaidat al-Jihad fi Bilad al-Rafidayn, more commonly known as Al-Qaeda in Iraq, was a Salafi jihadist organization affiliated with Al-Qaeda. It was founded on 17 October 2004, and was led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and Abu Ayyub al-Masri until its disbandment on 15 October 2006.
Events in the year 2008 in Iraq.
Parliamentary elections were held in Iraq on 7 March 2010. The elections decided the 325 members of the Council of Representatives who would elect the prime minister and president. The elections resulted in a partial victory for the Iraqi National Movement, led by former Interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, which won 91 seats, making it the largest alliance in the Council. The State of Law Coalition, led by incumbent Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki, was the second largest grouping with 89 seats.
The August 2009 Baghdad bombings were three coordinated car bomb attacks and a number of mortar strikes in the Iraqi capital, Baghdad, on 19 August 2009. The explosives were detonated simultaneously across the capital at approximately 10:45 in the morning, killing at least 101 people and wounding at least 565, making it the deadliest attack since the 14 August 2007 Yazidi communities bombings in northern Iraq which killed almost 800 people. The bombings targeted both government and privately-owned buildings.
This article details major terrorist incidents in Iraq in 2008. In 2008, there were 257 suicide bombings in Iraq. On February 1, a pair of bombs detonated at a market in Baghdad, killing 99 people and injuring 200. Two other particularly deadly attacks occurred on March 6, and June 17.
The December 2009 Baghdad bombings were attacks in Baghdad, Iraq, which resulted in the deaths of at least 127 people and injuries to at least 448 more. The attacks have been condemned internationally as acts of terrorism. Opposition parties within Iraqi politics have suggested that the attacks were aided by corruption within the Iraqi security forces and that the Iraqi Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki, was incompetent in managing the incident.
The April 2010 Baghdad bombings were a series of bomb attacks in Baghdad, Iraq that killed at least 85 people over two days. Hundreds more were seriously wounded.
The 17 August 2010 Baghdad bombings were two attacks in Baghdad, Iraq. The first attack in the morning was when a suicide bomber detonated his explosives outside the Iraqi Army division headquarters on potential recruits to the army, some of whom had queued for hours prior to the bombings, that killed over 60 and wounded more than 100. The second attack took place in the evening when a fuel truck exploded in a Shia neighbourhood, killing 8 and wounding 44.
Islamic State of Iraq claimed the first of the two attacks.
In the 2010 Baghdad church massacre, six suicide bombers of the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI) militant group attacked a Syriac Catholic church in Baghdad during Sunday evening Mass, on 31 October, 2010, and began killing the worshipers. ISI was a militant group which aimed to overthrow the Iraqi federal government and establish an Islamic state in Iraq.
The Iraqi insurgency was an insurgency that began in late 2011 after the end of the Iraq War and the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq, resulting in violent conflict with the central government, as well as low-level sectarian violence among Iraq's religious groups.
The 9 September 2012 Iraq attacks were a series of coordinated bombings and shootings across the capital Baghdad and several major cities in the north and south of the country. At least 108 people were killed and 371 injured in the first major insurgent action since a similar wave of violence almost a month earlier.
The following lists events that happened during 2014 in Iraq.
The following lists events the happened in 2013 in Iraq.
The Timeline of the War in Iraq covers the War in Iraq, a war which erupted that lasted in Iraq from 2013 to 2017, during the first year of armed conflict.
On 3 July 2016, ISIL militants carried out coordinated bomb attacks in Baghdad that killed 340 civilians and injured hundreds more. A few minutes after midnight local time, a suicide truck-bomb targeted the mainly Shia district of Karrada, busy with late night shoppers for Ramadan. A second roadside bomb was detonated in the suburb of Sha'ab, killing at least five.
