BAGHDAD — Two large suicide bombings Thursday renewed fears among Iraqis that Sunni insurgents are regaining strength and lethality as the U.S. military has started disassembling its massive wartime architecture.
The blasts, which killed more than 80 people in the bloodiest day here this year, came after Sunni insurgent groups warned that they would step up attacks against U.S. troops and Iraq’s Shiite-led government, which is backed by the United States.
One of the attacks killed 53 Iranian pilgrims and two Iraqis at a restaurant in Diyala province. The other killed 28 Iraqis in a predominantly Shiite district of central Baghdad.
The insurgent groups, which controlled vast areas of Iraq in 2006 and 2007, had lost considerable support, mobility and financial backing over the past two years.
But Thursday’s bombings follow a series of attacks that began last month after the Islamic State of Iraq, an umbrella organization that includes the Sunni insurgent group al-Qaeda in Iraq, announced it would carry out a wave of violence code-named “The Good Harvest.”
The violent campaign coincides with plans for a U.S. pullback. The first deadline in a phased American withdrawal agreed upon by Iraq and the U.S. comes this summer, when combat troops are supposed to move out of urban areas.
Top U.S. commanders have recently said the Iraqi government may ask them to keep American forces in cities in northern Iraq, where the insurgency remains entrenched, beyond the summer deadline. In Baghdad, the military has closed some inner-city bases and small outposts, but appears intent on keeping American soldiers at urban facilities that it shares with Iraqi troops well beyond the summer.
The attacks, which happened shortly after noon, came as an Iraqi military spokesman announced the capture of Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, the mysterious leader of the Sunni insurgent group al-Qaeda in Iraq.
