It's So Much Safer Over There Now

Isn't it?

Key Sunni Arab tribal head killed in Iraq - Boston.com: "Hours before lawmakers convened after a four-day recess, two coordinated bombs ripped through central Baghdad just before dawn, killing three people and wounding 21 people. The bombs, planted next to each other, went off in succession in Tahariyat Square, police 1st Lt. Thaeir Mahmoud said. Many of the injured were bystanders who rushed to the scene of the first explosion.

Also Sunday, a prominent Sunni Arab tribal leader who provided fighters to help U.S.-led forces track down al-Qaida and foreign fighters along the Syrian border was assassinated.

Sheik Osama al-Jadaan, a leader of the Karabila tribe, was gunned down as he drove in Baghdad's Mansour district, police Lt. Maitham Abdul Razzaq said. His driver and a bodyguard also were killed.

U.S. troops used al-Jadaan's followers to track down insurgents living under the protection of a rival tribe in Qaim and in a cluster of nearby towns that U.S. officials said was a staging area for smuggling weapons, ammunition and fighters into western Iraq.

The head of the provincial council in Diyala, a mixed but tense province north of Baghdad, escaped an assassination attempt that killed one of his bodyguards and injured six others. Ibrahim Bajlan was uninjured when a car bomb detonated next to his convoy in the Imam Weis area, 45 miles north of the provincial capital Baqouba.

The fresh violence came amid signs in the Iraqi capital that extremists seeking to force Baghdad residents to follow strict Islamic practices were targeting men wearing shorts, liquor stores and even barbers.

Gunmen in recent months have killed people drinking beer along the banks of the Tigris. Attackers in Baghdad last week stopped a car carrying a Sunni Arab tennis coach and two of his Shiite players, asked them to step out and shot them; the three were wearing shorts. And extremists have been distributing leaflets warning people in two mostly Sunni neighborhoods not to wear shorts, police said.

The U.S. military has said the bodies regularly turn up of people killed in sectarian attacks, by death squads and criminal violence -- including 33 last week in Baghdad province. U.S. military officials consider it one of their biggest problems in the Baghdad area."

Religious enforcement, death squads, vengeful Marines and coordinated terrorist bombs. Very little running water or flowing electricity to the people. Mess-o-patamia is right.

And they thought Saddam was bad. At least they could walk the streets in their clothing of choice and not worry about being shot on sight. Aah, the good old days.

Tags: Saddam, death squads, roadside bomb, assassination