Two suicide car bombs exploded in downtown Baghdad Sunday, killing at least 136 people and delivering a powerful blow to the heart of the fragile city’s government in the worst attack of the year, officials said.
While violence has dropped dramatically in the country since the height of the sectarian tensions, such bombings like Sunday’s demonstrate the precarious nature of the security gains and the insurgency’s abilities to still pull off devastating attacks in the center of what is supposed to be one of Baghdad’s most secure areas.
Black smoke could be …

June 30th 2009 – the day on which occupying combat troops have left the Iraqi cities and handed over the control to Iraqi security forces. However, it is more or less only symbolic as US advsiors will keep on working in Iraq as well as US forces will patrol the cities along with the Iraqi forces.
It is a coincidence that this very day Iraq has auctioned off some of the country’s largest oil fields to companies such as ExxonMobil, Chevron and British Petroleum. Is it not a reminder of the real motives …

An Iraqi journalist was wrestled to the floor by security guards after he called Mr Bush “a dog” and threw his footwear, just missing the president.
With his second shoe, which the president also managed to dodge, Mr Zaidi said: “This is for the widows and orphans and all those killed in Iraq.”
Mr Zaidi, a correspondent for Cairo-based al-Baghdadiya TV, was then wrestled to the ground by security personnel and hauled away. “If you want the facts, it’s a size 10 shoe that he threw,” Mr Bush joked afterwards.
What a surprise …