Series of suicide bombings rock Iraq killing at least 60

Katherine Lanpher, The Takeaway: We have, of course, reports this morning from another attack in Iraq. We have had five bombings in barely 24 hours; the latest, twin suicide bombers attacking the most important Shiite shrine in Baghdad, killing at least 60 people, injuring at least 125 more as they gathered for Friday prayers. We go now to Baghdad and Steven Lee Myers, our partner at the New York Times. Steven, give us an update here. What is the latest we’re hearing about this attack?

Steven Lee Myers, The New York Times: It seems to have been a twin suicide attack, the bombers came up and mingled with the crowd as they were waiting to get into the shrine that you mentioned and blew themselves up nearly simultaneously, as near as we can figure.

Katherine Lanpher: All right, we have, if I’m doing the math here from your story in the Times, we have five bombings that have killed at least 140 people, and wounded 240 people, just within the last 24 hours. Put this in context for us. Is this the worst violence that we’ve seen?

Steven Lee Myers: I would add one thing: even since then there’s been yet another bombing, though a smaller one, that has killed two more people in Diyala province where one of the bombings yesterday also happened. I think what we’re seeing here is what appears to be an upsurge of violence that the Iraqi authorities are scrambling to get a handle on, not very successfully I think.

Katherine Lanpher: We’ve had, today of course, there were a lot of pilgrims who were attacked. We also see that many of the victims are Shiite. So tell me, is this religious in its context in terms of who’s being attacked?

Steven Lee Myers: It seems very clear that the last few attacks have targeted the Shiites in Iraq particularly. That and the use of suicide bombers is often an indication that al-Qaida and al-Qaida-like groups here in Iraq are behind them. The Islamic State of Iraq, sort of the umbrella group for a lot of these extremist organizations, has claimed that they’re targeting, they’ve launched a new campaign. They call it the ?good harvest? or the ?harvest of the good? which seems to be aimed, I think, at inflaming sectarian tensions again, as attacks in the past have done.

Katherine Lanpher: Now I thought, according to the The Christian Science Monitor, that Iraqi authorities were saying just not that long ago that they had captured one of the leaders of the Islamic State of Iraq. Any connection with that?

Steven Lee Myers: Well yesterday they announced they had arrested Abu Omar al-Baghdad, who is a sort of mythic figure, if you will, said to be the leader of the insurgency here, particularly the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Qaida. Those people, including the U.S. military, think that this is a fictitious person, a figurehead, and in fact today the United States military said they were unable to confirm, in fact, that this person, the purported head of the insurgency here, was arrested yesterday as the Iraqis announced.

Todd Zwillich, The Takeaway: Steven, we have to ask, what are the implications for the U.S. military presence there in Baghdad and in Iraq? I realize this is largely Iraqi on Iraqi violence that we’re seeing, but what are you hearing from the US military from how this affects their posture?

Steven Lee Myers: I think in general, the military as well as the new administration believe that they’re going to be able to continue a phased withdrawal of American forces over the course of the next two years. The fact is that not many American troops have yet withdrawn, so the numbers are still quite high. I think what’s happening is they are pulling back a little bit from some of the cities and turning much more control since the beginning of this year to Iraqi security forces and while you’re right that their attacks seem to be targeted on Iraqi civilians and Iraqi security forces, there have been attacks this month that have killed American soldiers. So I think there’s a great deal of concern that any uptick in violence threatens the stability of this place, it hampers the political reconciliation process, it weakens the government. Of course that’s a huge concern for the military as they prepare in the months ahead to really turn over more and more of this country to the Iraqi forces.

Todd Zwillich: Right and this might be a good time for an update. The surge, when we changed our Iraq policy and started putting a lot more U.S. personnel in forward positions and in neighborhoods, it helped a lot. Now you’re saying we’re starting to draw out of those neighborhoods and hand it over to Iraqi units. As this violence flares up, how well equipped are the Iraqi units in terms of their training and their know-how and their willingness to handle what seems like an upsurge in trouble there.

Steven Lee Myers: I mean it’s really hard to say on a day-to-day basis. You certainly see much more Iraqi security presence on the street in Baghdad and elsewhere. In large parts of the country there is a great deal of safety, or at least a general sense of safety. Whether or not, the Iraqi forces are able to have the intelligence, both the human intelligence and sophisticated electronic eavesdropping and so forth, that will help them detect and head off these attacks remains very much in question. The Americans are spending a lot of time training the Iraqi forces and they say they’re positive about the progress they’ve made, but I don’t think anyone thinks they’re quite ready yet.

Katherine Lanpher: Steven, the victims of these attacks: in the past we’ve seen candidates for the police school, other soldiers. In this particular one, we have pilgrims, we have people lining up, women and children lining up to get humanitarian aid, we have bus loads of tourists who take a break to pray. What does that tell us about this recent cycle of violence?

Steven Lee Myers: I mean, I think generally the targets seem to be Iraqi security forces, by and large. The women and children who were killed were receiving food packages from Iraqi forces. I think, like many terrorist attacks, they look for soft spots and soft targets that they’re able to get to. The targeting of the shrine today and yesterday a restaurant that was apparently quite full of Iranian tourists seems to have been directed specifically at Iranians who are Shiite and who come to important shires here in Baghdad and Karbala and Najaf elsewhere in Iraq. Those seem to have been singled out to attack both Shiites, but also Iranians who are visiting.

Katherine Lanpher: Steven Lee Myers, reporting to us from Baghdad, we thank you so much for your time.