Blasts hit Baghdad as deaths hit new high

[jefferson_dem]

Blasts hit Baghdad as deaths hit new high
By Ahmed Rasheed

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Nine people were killed in bomb blasts in central Baghdad and mortars rained down on a Sunni neighborhood on Thursday as new figures showed that Iraqi civilians deaths reached a new high in January.

The data from an Interior Ministry official, widely viewed as an indicative but only partial record of violent deaths, showed 1,971 people died in Iraq from "terrorism" in January, slightly up from the previous high of 1,930 deaths in December.

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The violence comes despite Shi'ite Prime Minister Nuri al- Maliki's announcement of a planned, U.S.-backed crackdown on militants in the lawless capital. Thousands of U.S. troops have been sent to Baghdad help Iraqi security forces in what is seen as a final attempt to avert all-out sectarian civil war.

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The United Nations, which gathers data from the Health Ministry and Baghdad's morgue, put the number of civilian deaths in December at 2,914, down from 3,462 in November.

All such statistics are controversial in Iraq. The latest tally given by the United Nations was branded exaggerated by the Iraqi government. The U.S. military gives no such figures.

The Iraqi government, frustrated at its inability to rein in the increasing violence, has stopped publishing figures.

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http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070201/ts_nm/iraq_dc_99

[liberal N proud]

1. Part of that headline astounds me: "as deaths hit new high"

Do they think that the number of deaths are going to go down?

[babylonsister]

2. Good point. Sigh. nt

[xchrom]

3. welcome to the surge.

[SheilaT]

4. And this is just in Baghdad.

Iraqis are dying all over the country from bombs or roadside attacks or various other things directly connected to our invasion and occupation.