Iraq attacks kill 11 as violence spirals

Attacks in Iraq, including car bombs in Baghdad, killed 11 people today, the latest in a surge of violence that has left 166 dead in a week and sparked fears of all-out sectarian conflict.
The UN has called for Iraq's leaders to urgently hold talks to resolve wide-ranging political disputes that have been linked to the surge in unrest.
But the government's public response has thus far largely been limited to speeches, a shakeup of senior security officers and announcing a series of vague new measures relating to security.
"If there is no political agreement, then it will affect security, and there won't be a stable security situation," Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari warned, during a news conference in Baghdad. "This is a golden rule."

He added that it was "the government's responsibility to redouble its efforts to revise its security plans, to contain this wave, to prevent this from sliding into sectarian war."
Amid all the statements and pronouncements, however, the violence has intensified.

Today morning, a vehicle rigged with explosives went off in northeast Baghdad, killing four people and wounding a dozen more, while two more car bombs in the centre of the capital killed two people and wounded 14.
Two border policemen were also ambushed along the main Iraq-Jordan highway and shot dead, while three policemen were killed in an early morning suicide car bombing in the main northern city of Mosul.

Violence a day earlier, including a bombing against a bridal party in south Baghdad, killed 28 people. Security forces today barred journalists from attending the funeral for victims of the wedding party assault.
And 46 more people died in unrest on Tuesday.
The latest attacks took to more than 580 the number of people killed in May, with more than 1,000 having died in less than two months, according to AFP figures based on reports by security and medical sources.
The tolls are still markedly lower than the worst of Iraq's sectarian conflict in 2006 and 2007, when death tolls could run to well over 1,000 people per month, but represent a substantial increase on previous months.

Iraq has seen a heightened level of violence since the beginning of the year, coinciding with rising discontent among the Sunni Arab minority that erupted into protests in late December.
Members of the minority, which ruled the country from its establishment after World War I until Saddam Hussein's overthrow by US-led forces in 2003, accuse the Shiite-led government of marginalising and targeting their community.
Analysts say government policies that have disenfranchised Sunnis have given militant groups in Iraq both fuel and room to manoeuvre among the disillusioned community.
The government has made some concessions aimed at placating protesters and Sunnis in general, such as freeing prisoners and raising the salaries of Sunni anti-Qaeda fighters, but underlying issues have yet to be addressed.

UN envoy Martin Kobler called on Tuesday for the country's leaders to meet to resolve long-running political crises that have paralysed the government and been blamed for its inability to halt the bloodshed.