Al-Qaeda in Iraq claims deadly attacks

BAGHDAD: Al-Qaeda in Iraq has claimed responsibility for a wave of bombings and suicide attacks that killed around 60 people on the 10th anniversary of the US-led invasion that ousted Saddam Hussein.
A decade after US and Western troops swept into Iraq to remove Saddam, Iraq still struggles to overcome violence, sectarian tensions and political instability that test the fragile unity among Shiites, Sunnis and ethnic Kurds.
The country’s Al-Qaeda wing is regaining strength, invigorated by the rebellion in next door Syria and has carried out dozens of high-profile attacks since the start of the year.
Car bombs, roadside explosions and suicide attacks on Tuesday hit mainly Shiite districts and security forces in Baghdad and other cities, including a bomber who detonated his blast inside a restaurant in the northern city of Mosul.
While violence is below the level of the Shiite on Sunni bloodshed that killed tens of thousands a few years ago, suicide bombers have struck nearly two times a week since January, a rate Iraq has not seen for several years.
The Iraq war began shortly before dawn in Baghdad on Thursday, March 20, 2003, with US air strikes on the capital. Shortly afterwards, President George W. Bush, told Americans late on March 19 US time that the offensive was under way.
Iraq power-sharing government split among Shiite, Sunnis and Kurdish factions has been all but paralyzed by disputes for more than a year. Critics of Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki say he is amassing power at their expense.
To the country’s north, Iraq’s autonomous Kurdistan region is increasingly bristling against central government control and seeking ways to develop its own oil resources and defy Baghdad by shipping crude to its northern neighbor Turkey.
To the west of Baghdad, thousands of Sunni Muslims have protested for months, blocking a key highway to Jordan and Syria in protest against the government that it says has marginalized them since the fall of Saddam.