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So, every month we bring you a round up of all the sectarian violence that's been going
on in Iraq and every month, the death toll is shockingly high.
But this month we thought we'd start with something a little bit different.
And that starting point is the continuing pursuit of profit from the war with Iraq that
we started. There was a weapons conference in Baghdad at the start of March, the third
since 2012. There were fifty three foreign companies there to sell guns and other weapons
to help the Iraqi armed forces rebuild stability in their country.
Unsurprisingly there were representatives from the UK and US, the two countries leading
the war charge.
So our governments essentially created this instability before allowing corporations to
go in and exploit it. In the same as there was a run on Iraqi oil in the immediate aftermath
of the invasion, weapons companies are now seeking to exploit the situation our governments
helped to create.
And the situation that's been created in Iraq is one of extreme instability.
On March 8 a car bomb went off near a market in northern Baghdad. It killed four people
and injured 12 civilians.
It detonated in the mainly Shia area of al-Qahera and damaged a few shops and vehicles.
It, like most of the bombings, was blamed on the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham,
a group whose profile and strength has grown since the outbreak of the war in neighboring
Syria.
And on the same day in Baghdad there were protests against the proposed Ja'afari law.
The law would permit the marriage of nine year old girls and automatically give custody
to fathers.
The protests were timed to coincide with International Women's Day and they were protesting about
the text of the legislation, which describes girls as reaching puberty at nine and making
them fit for marriage. It also makes the father sole guardian of his children as well as allowing
a husband to insist on *** intercourse with his wife whenever he wants.
It's been condemned around the world and by Iraqis because it turns women into ***
tools for men and worsens the already poor status of women in general in Iraq.
On March 15th three car bombs in Baghdad killed at least 15 people in mainly Shia areas.
The three attacks happened in Ameen, al-Qahera and al-Amil.
There was another attack on the same day in the city of Tikrit in Salahuddin province,
north of Baghdad.
At least 30 people were wounded there.
And then, on March 20th a suicide bomber killed at least 14 people and wounded another 41
in al-Washash in west Baghdad.
The elections in Iraq are fast approaching and violence is expected to increase. Prime
Minister Nouri al-Maliki has launched an offensive against ISIS in the west of the country, in
Anbar province, but that doesn't seem to have stemmed the flow of blood at all.
We selected just a few of the attacks but they happen every single day, whether by suicide
bomb, car bomb, gun fights. The level of sectarian violence at the moment in Iraq is shocking.
Iraq body count's initial estimate for the number of people killed in Iraq, in sectarian
violence, in March alone, is 1,009.
That brings the total for 2014 to more than 3,000 and if it carries on at this rate, it
could be the bloodiest year since the end of the invasion.