Suicide Bombings And Assassinations Is What Passes For The New Normal In Iraq Today

As Baghdad Violence Evolves, Officials Grapple With New Scourge: Assassinations -- New York Times

BAGHDAD — Under pressure to respond to a public unnerved by a wave of assassinations, one of the top security officials in Baghdad held an unusual news conference on Wednesday to play video confessions from three suspects from what he said was a cell of Al Qaeda.

The videos and statements played by the security official, Maj. Gen. Qassim Atta, the military spokesman for the Baghdad Operations Command, provided a rare view of the almost businesslike violence that persists here, though at drastically lower levels than in the years of sectarian conflict before 2007. But they also raise questions, not at all unusual for news conferences of this sort in Baghdad, about how much credence to place in the confessions.

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