Main focus of Thursday, August 20, 2009

New attacks in Baghdad

More than 90 people have been killed and hundreds injured in a series of explosions in Baghdad on Wednesday. The European press comments with concern on the most serious bomb attacks to have been carried out since the withdrawal of US troops from Iraqi cities on June 30.

Diário de Notícias - Portugal

The daily Diário de Notícias writes that in view of the attacks on Wednesday in Baghdad both the US and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki will have to change their strategies: "Exactly six years ago another attack led to the withdrawal of the UN from Iraq. Yesterday's attacks however won't prompt Washington to pull out its troops any earlier. … But the Pentagon will have to rethink its strategy. Yesterday's attacks sent at least two clear messages: that the government was the target and that the green [international] zone is not so secure after all. Moreover the [Iraqi] prime minister will have to revise his security policy again: Nouri al-Maliki was convinced he had won the battle against the extremists and therefore dismantled a number of security barriers in the capital. If they had still been standing they could have prevented the trucks with the explosives from approaching the ministries. But all this is part of a bigger picture: the attacks bear the signature of the Islamic Sunnis who have ties with al-Qaida." (20/08/2009)

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More from the press review on the subject » International Relations, » Security Policy / Crises / War, » U.S., » Iraq

La Stampa - Italy

Writing in the liberal daily La Stampa Barbara Spinelli criticises the US-led anti-terrorism campaign: "Although they were launched to promote light and democracy the anti-terror wars have brought darkness and fog and created that monster they promised to defeat: the failed state which serves as a breeding ground for terrorism. This is the message the authors of yesterday's attacks sent in Baghdad: your wars are like the dead who have risen from the ashes. 9/11 is your eternal present in Iraq, which you have abandoned, and in Afghanistan where you think you are still strong because the elections take place tomorrow under your protection. … One of the mistakes that have ruined the operation in Afghanistan is above all the US's inconsistency: the vain fickleness with which [former US president George W.] Bush staggered from one battleground to another - on 7 October 2001 to Afghanistan and on 20 March 2003 to Iraq - without in the end stabilising any of them." (20/08/2009)

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More from the press review on the subject » International Relations, » Security Policy / Crises / War, » Iraq, » Afghanistan
All available articles from » Barbara Spinelli

Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung - Germany

The conservative Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung writes about the security situation in Iraq following Wednesday's wave of attacks: "The seven obviously coordinated attacks on the capital Baghdad which claimed dozens of victims have rudely dashed any hopes that the Iraqi security forces would be able to ensure peace and security on their own. The country has not really become any safer since the Americans withdrew from the cities to their bases. … Some Iraqis are apparently acting as if the Americans had left the country entirely, as if the occupation had ended. But this won't be the case until next August at the earliest, and the withdrawal won't be completed until 2012. But as Wednesday's bloodbath in Baghdad proves, by then the Iraqis will have had to fall back on the skills of the Americans more than many want to, whether they like it or not." (20/08/2009)

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More from the press review on the subject » Security Policy / Crises / War, » U.S., » Global, » Middle East, » Iraq
All available articles from » Wolfgang Günter Lerch

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