Attacks in Baghdad going up

Remember that this is going on during the unprecedented security "crackdown" in Baghdad.

"I think since we have started Operation Together Forward, you'll find that the number of attacks are going up," Army Col. Jeffrey Snow told reporters on a videoconference from Baghdad, referring to the security crackdown.....

"As we populated and put additional patrols, both dismounted and mounted, into neighborhoods ... and we increased the number of checkpoints, we expected that there would be an increase in the number of attacks," Snow said. "And that is precisely what's happened."

Col. Snow's assumption seems to be that the increase in violence is related to an increased number of patrols. Certainly that's probably a part of it, but let me offer another possibility.

The current crackdown has forced the militias and neighborhood protection groups to abandon their self made/self operated checkpoints. I don't know the relative methodologies and personnel numbers between, for instance, the Sadr militia and the current "crackdown" forces, but it could be that some areas are receiving less checkpoint type protection than they were before the crackdown allowing more access to violent factional elements.

Take, for example, the major car bombing yesterday in the Shia marketplace in Sadr City, Baghdad that killed at least 65 and wounded at least 200. Is the current government led security operation giving the same protection to that very popular market as the Sadr/Mehdi Army militias were before they were forced from the streets?

I don't know whether the militias are a good thing or not, probably a bit of both, but they have developed and gained support primarily because they offered the public some degree of protection. If the US and Iraqi governments want to force them from the streets, they will have to offer that level of security or better.