By Brian Whitaker
"August is still a week away but July has already become the bloodiest month in Iraq so far this year. Yesterday brought at least 14 more deaths to add to the toll, including nine officers killed when insurgents attacked a police station near Mosul.
Meanwhile, the mass
breakout from Abu Ghraib and Taji prisons – for which al-Qaeda in Iraq has
claimed responsibility – has raised fears that hundreds of previously captive
fighters will become active again.
Amid political turmoil in Egypt and seemingly endless
slaughter in Syria, the deteriorating situation in Iraq is largely ignored by
the rest of the world.
Only a handful of journalists from the international media
remain based in Baghdad and the security situation restricts their ability to
travel around the country. Media coverage, such as it is, relates mainly to the
growing violence but, because of events in neighbouring Syria, even this month’s
death toll of well
over 600 in Iraq has caused less alarm than it should.
Although this is still well below the peaks reached by the
insurgency in 2006-2007, there was a period around 2009 when Iraq’s future
looked relatively hopeful. Not any more. “All the trajectories are moving in the
opposite direction,” Prashant Rao, AFP’s Baghdad bureau chief, said
yesterday during a visit to London.
The problem is not only what’s happening but also what
isn’t happening......"
No comments:
Post a Comment