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Letter to the editor

Last week in Iraq

By Times Wires
Published January 27, 2008

Attacks

-A suicide bomber blew himself up inside a funeral tent Monday, killing 18 people in the latest of a series of deadly attacks chipping away at the notion of a calmer Iraq. The bombing in Hajaj, a village north of Baghdad, was the third in as many days in Sunni Arab areas thought to have been largely rid of al-Qaida militants.

-A suicide bomber pushing an electric heater atop a cart packed with hidden explosives attacked a high school north of Baghdad on Tuesday. A bystander was killed and 21 people were wounded. In another attack, a bomb exploded next to a girl's high school in Amiriyah, west of Baghdad, wounding a 7-year-old boy who was passing by.

-A thunderous blast tore through a vacant apartment building in Mosul on Wednesday, killing at least 38 civilians and wounding 225 in adjacent houses just minutes after the Iraqi army arrived to investigate tips about a weapons cache.

-On Thursday, a suicide bomber killed a provincial police chief and two other officers who were surveying the site of Wednesday's bombing in Mosul. The city was placed under curfew.

Military

-A soldier killed south of Baghdad last weekend was the first American fatality in a roadside bomb attack on the newly introduced mine-resistant, ambush-protected vehicle known by the acronym MRAP, Pentagon officials said Tuesday.

-Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said Friday that Iraqi reinforcements have begun moving toward the northern city of Mosul for a "decisive" battle with the Sunni insurgent group al-Qaida in Iraq.

Rebuilding

-Iraq's Parliament on Tuesday passed a law to change the Saddam Hussein-era flag, meeting the demands of Iraq's Kurdish minority. The measure, which expires in one year, approved the removal of the three stars and changing the calligraphy of the words "Allahu Akbar" in a symbolic break with the past.

-Radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, head of Iraq's most powerful Shiite militia, refuses to hold direct talks with U.S. envoys despite apparent willingness for dialogue by Washington, a Sadr spokesman, Sheik Salah al-Obeidi, said Wednesday.

-Iraq's oil exports rose 9.2 percent last year, the Oil Ministry announced Thursday. The rise in 2007 exports reached an average of 1.6-million barrels per day - still short of the estimated 2.5-million barrels a day before the U.S.-led invasion in 2003.

Deaths

As of Saturday, 3,932 U.S. troops have died in Iraq. Identifications as reported by the U.S. military and not previously published:

-Army Lance Cpl. James M. Gluff, 20, Tunnel Hill, Ga.; combat Jan. 19; Anbar province.

-Army Spc. Jon M. Schoolcraft III, 26, Wapakoneta, Ohio; explosion Jan. 19; Taji.

-Army Sgt. Michael R. Sturdivant, 20, Conway, Ark.; vehicle accident Tuesday; Kirkuk.

-Army Staff Sgt. Justin R. Whiting, 27, Hancock, N.Y.; explosion Jan. 19; Mosul.

[Last modified January 27, 2008, 02:21:22]