Yesterday a series of attacks killed seven police officers and injured nine more. The attacks came during police checkpoints in western Iraq. They took place in the town of al-Rutba, a majority Sunni Muslim community. The first attack was by a suicide bombing which killed four officers and injured three others. Then later on in the day, gunmen attacked several security checkpoints, killing three officers and wounding six. In addition to that, a car bomb exploded in a busy market. The car bomb went off in the town of Musayyib, killing one person and injuring eleven more. It is important to note that Musayyib is predominantly a Shiite town. Tension between the Sunni and Shiite populations have greatly increased since April. To this point in 2013, over 6,000 people have been killed in Iraq. More than 350 of those deaths have come this month alone. Also, almost 1,000 of these deaths came in September.
The violence occurring between these two sects has continued to increase as the days go by. They are continuously making attacks on the other. The Sunni, the minority of Iraqis, have felt marginalized since the overthrowing of Saddam Hussein in 2003. Even though the government is pretty much led by the Shiite, they need to step in and do something to resolve these issues. That can be an attainable goal since these people have done fairly well living in peace together in recent years. This type of violence is causing bad living conditions for the people of that area. That is something the government should've already addressed. There is no doubts that what happened yesterday was in retaliation to the car bombings that took place last week. There is also no doubt that the violence will continue to occur between these two religious groups.
Kaelin Graham
10/23/13
10:15 a.m.
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