Iraq: Car bomb blasts tear through Shiite areas near Baghdad

Baghdad: A wave of car bomb blasts tore through Shiite areas south of Baghdad on Monday, killing at least 36 and deepening fears that Iraq is rapidly spiralling back out of control.

The attacks capped a week of turmoil that is posing the greatest test of Iraq’s stability since US troops left the country in late 2011.

The unrest follows four months of widespread protests among Iraq’s Sunni minority, who feel they are discriminated against and are being marginalised by Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki’s Shiite-led government.

Iraqi officials fear that Sunni feelings of disenfranchisement could be exploited by extremist groups such as Al Qaida and militant organisations such as the Naqshabandi Army, which is linked to Saddam Hussain’s former regime.

In a possible sign of mounting worries over the deteriorating security situation, Iraqi authorities announced they plan to close the country’s only border crossing with Jordan, beginning on Tuesday. The Interior Ministry said the move is related Iraq’s domestic affairs.

Hotbeds of Sunni anger

The route to the border runs through the cities of Ramadi and Fallujah, west of Baghdad, which have been hotbeds of Sunni anger at the government. Many Sunnis in western Iraq have economic, tribal and cultural ties with Jordanians, most of whom are also Sunni.

Shaikh Fakhir Al Qubaisi, a protest organiser in Anbar province, blasted the latest closure plans as “another escalation by the Iraqi government to punish the revolting Iraqi people.” He predicted the closure would drive up the prices of food and medicine, and might be tied to a coming security crackdown on protest sites in the area.

The Interior Ministry spokesman, Lt. Col. Sa’ad Maan Ebrahim, insisted the border closure was solely a technical matter and is unrelated to ongoing tensions in the country. He did not elaborate, and said it should reopen within 48 hours.

Iraq temporarily shut the same border crossing in January, weeks after anti-government protests erupted along the desert highway heading to the checkpoint. That angered many Sunnis in western Iraq, who saw it as collective punishment for their rallies.

The International Crisis Group recently warned that the standoff between Sunni protesters and the central government has begun a dangerous slide toward confrontation.

Regional struggle

“The emergence of an arc of instability and conflict linking Lebanon, Syria and Iraq, fuelled by sectarianism and involving porous borders as well as cross-border alliances, represents a huge risk,” the conflict-prevention group warned. “Failure to integrate Sunni Arabs into a genuinely representative political system in Baghdad risks turning Iraq’s domestic crisis into a broader regional struggle.”

Sectarian violence has spiked since last Tuesday, when security forces tried to make arrests at a Sunni protest camp in the northern city of Hawija. The move set off a clash that killed 23 people, including three soldiers.

In Baghdad, Al Maliki met on Monday with the prime minister of Iraq’s largely autonomous Kurdish region, Nechirvan Barzani.

A statement from the Iraqi leader’s office said the two sides discussed their differences “in an atmosphere of frankness and seriousness and with a common desire to find solutions.”

Ongoing disputes between Baghdad and the Kurds over sensitive issues such as ethnically disputed territories and how to manage the country’s vast oil wealth further undermine Iraq’s stability as Al Maliki tries to manage relations with the country’s Sunni Arabs.