Last Throe Update

It's amazing how our primary conflict has been seemingly relegated to secondary coverage. I don't know if that's a reflection the media's (and in turn, Americans') short attention span, or if the ceaseless violence, by definition, has simply rendered on-the-ground coverage impossible, but it keeps on going:

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Police say a series of explosions have killed 20 people and wounded more than 70 in a Shiite neighborhood in southern Baghdad.

....

As night fell, at least two mortar bombs hit an apartment building in the religiously mixed southern Baghdad district of Zaafaraniya, killing eight people and wounding 61, police said.

Earlier, three people were wounded by a roadside bomb near a Shiite mosque in eastern Baghdad, police said.

More than 50,000 U.S. and Iraqi forces are taking part in Operation Together Forward. Similar campaigns have failed in the past but Washington hopes to cut violence significantly by the end of September.

U.S. officers now talk openly about the risk of a full-scale civil war unless they can calm conditions in Baghdad.

....

U.S. troops rounded up 60 suspected militants Saturday in a security clampdown in the capital and killed 26 insurgents in a rebel Sunni stronghold west of Baghdad.

The sweep through the southern Baghdad district of Arab Jabour targeted a suspected bomb-making cell linked to attacks across the city of seven million.

“The group has been reported to be planning and conducting training for future attacks, like the attack in Mahmudiya July 17 that killed 42,” the U.S. military said in a statement.

Beefed-up U.S. and Iraqi forces this week began a systematic operation to claim back Baghdad’s most dangerous rebel strongholds in an attempt to restore security and shore up confidence in the new Shiite-led government.

U.S. officers now talk openly about the risk of a full-scale civil war unless they can calm conditions in Baghdad.

Some 50,000 U.S. and Iraqi forces are taking part in Operation Together Forward. Similar campaigns have failed in the past but Washington hopes to cut violence significantly by the end of September.

About 100 Iraqis die every day
Al-Maliki, in power since May, has had little success in bringing the country’s rival factions together, and about 100 Iraqis die every day.

A suicide bomber killed 35 people on Thursday near one of the most revered sites in the Shiite world, the Imam Ali shrine in Najaf, in the bloodiest single attack since mid-July.

U.S. Marines and soldiers killed 26 insurgents and wounded six in prolonged fighting overnight Friday in Ramadi, west of Baghdad, said the military.

“Marines and soldiers...were attacked at multiple locations with rocket-propelled grenades, medium machinegun fire and small arms fire from buildings targeting outposts in the northwest portion of the city,” the U.S. military said in a statement.

I'm sure this is all somehow the fault of wacko elitist Ned Lamont, and the angry, angry nutroots who purged that nice Joe Lieberman.