Best Defense
Thomas E. Ricks' daily take on national security.

Iraq: al Qaeda’s continuing horrors

Someone apparently pretending to be Americans killed 24 people a couple of days ago, many of them former insurgents. Iraqi officials are blaming al Qaeda. It all happened in the area south of Baghdad that American soldiers used to call "the ‘Iyas’" — my least favorite part of Iraq.  This was followed by a series ...

By , a former contributing editor to Foreign Policy.
ALI AL-SAADI/AFP/Getty Images
ALI AL-SAADI/AFP/Getty Images
ALI AL-SAADI/AFP/Getty Images

Someone apparently pretending to be Americans killed 24 people a couple of days ago, many of them former insurgents. Iraqi officials are blaming al Qaeda. It all happened in the area south of Baghdad that American soldiers used to call "the 'Iyas'" -- my least favorite part of Iraq. 

Someone apparently pretending to be Americans killed 24 people a couple of days ago, many of them former insurgents. Iraqi officials are blaming al Qaeda. It all happened in the area south of Baghdad that American soldiers used to call "the ‘Iyas’" — my least favorite part of Iraq. 

This was followed by a series of embassy bombings in Baghdad yesterday.

I am not making this part of my "Iraq Unraveling" series because I am not persuaded that this outbreak has legs. We’ll see.

Thomas E. Ricks is a former contributing editor to Foreign Policy. Twitter: @tomricks1

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