Sign in. It’s quick, free and it’s up to you.
An account is an optional way to support the work we do. Find out more.
BOMBINGS TARGETING SHIITE Muslims, including a suicide bombing against the funeral of an Iraqi soldier, killed at least 33 people this evening, officials said, updating an earlier toll.
Both the attacks struck in confessionally divided Diyala province, north of Baghdad, with the suicide bomb at a Shiite religious hall killing 23 people, and another blast at a cafe in provincial capital Baquba killing 10 more.
More than 2,500 people have been killed in Iraq in the past three months alone, UN figures showed today, a surge of violence that has fanned fears the politically-deadlocked country is slipping back into all-out bloodshed.
The toll comes as the country grapples with months of protests among the Sunni Arab minority, tensions in a swathe of territory in northern Iraq disputed by the Kurds, and a protracted political deadlock that has blocked key legislation.
Attacks in June targeted a wide cross-section of Iraqi society — government targets and security forces were hit by car bombs, mosques were struck by suicide attackers, anti-Qaeda militiamen were shot dead, and Iraqis watching and playing football were killed by blasts.
“They (militants) are intent on causing large number of casualties, to embarrass the government, to raise frustrations and possibly stoke a return to militias again,” said John Drake, a Britain-based analyst for risk consultancy AKE Group.
“There’s something about this period that’s very familiar. It feels like we’ve gone back several years.
“I remember saying the same things in 2007,” he added, referring to the brutal sectarian war that blighted Iraq in 2006 and 2007, leaving tens of thousands dead.
The surge in violence comes amid a protracted political standoff within Iraq’s national unity government, with little in the way of landmark legislation passed since a 2010 parliamentary election.
- © AFP 2013.
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
Good
“Forced” to sell them to get money, they were paid for them why are they getting them back. I sold items during the down turn to get money along with numerous other Irish people, do we have a right to claim them back now.
They were in a privileged position that they had the paintings to sell, what about poor Jews that had nothing. That’s crazy.
@Eoin Doe: I’m not sure a downturn in the economy can be compared to escaping the Holocaust. The French state rightly doesn’t want to profit in any way from the horrors of Naziism
@KalEll: It goes without saying that i’m not comparing the Holocaust with our economic down turn. I’m making the point that I made a decision to sell something that I wouldn’t have had I not been in a difficult situation and I’m lucky I had it to sell. They sold their paintings and went on to lead a normal life which is great, should their family have the paintings returned “NO”
By that rational any Jew fleeing Europe should be reimbursed the cost incurred by fleeing etc. It’s another case of wishing to be seen to acting in a particular way. Should the family’s of Irish people who sold belongings to go to America during the famine be reimbursed by the state?
@Eoin Doe: I think you’re missing the point. The French state would have continued to profit from the paintings that only came to their possession because of the Third Reich. It’s hard to see how there would be a similar case in the examples you give.
@Eoin Doe: I think there is a stark difference between them being forced to sell in 1939 and you being forced to sell during the downturn when one considers the consequences of not selling.
@Eoin Doe: they sold the paintings to evade the Nazis they lost their homes money everything they only sold them and for next to nothing to flee they more than entitled to them back they didn’t sell them for profit but to survive and most.these art works wernt sold but taken by the Nazis , the atrocities are a stain on mankinds history and anything in a small way to even touch on repairing that should be welcomed
About time. A lot of French collaborated with IRA/SF-supported Hitler’s Nazis.
@Adam Reid: no in ww1 while we had.our rising they did if you Google Ireland’s plan in event of Germany invading england plan was to allow British troops and government take charge and occupy Ireland rather than allow the nazis invade us like we allways do expect everyone else do the dirty work
..
If the Nazis hadn’t minded them, they would have been lost in the bombing of German cities.
@Paul Culligan: Yeah they were good like that. Who’s minded your brain while you’re on the Internet?
@Paul Culligan: Silly statement of the week
What a great story but yet the BRAVE Journal will not report on the remarks by the Polish Prime Minister re Jews and collaboration – is this Journal self censorship? is it afraid of Polish legal action? If this is indeed the case than shame on the Journal.
have your say