BAGHDAD — Insurgent attacks produced the highest monthly death toll among Iraqis in 13 months, according to Iraqi government figures obtained by the Los Angeles Times, with August marred by suicide bombings in the north and a high-profile assault on government ministries in Baghdad.
The spike in violence stoked concern that security is deteriorating with the withdrawal of most U.S. troops from Iraqi cities on June 30 and the approach of national elections in January.
A total of 456 Iraqi civilians and security personnel were killed in attacks in August, the Iraqi government figures show. It was the deadliest month since July 2008, when 465 Iraqis died violently, though the tally was far lower than it was in the height of the civil war in 2006 and 2007 when the monthly death toll sometimes soared past 2,000.
The attacks in August, as well as a similar spate of bombings that resulted in 355 Iraqis killed in April and 438 killed in June, have fed Iraqis’ impression that security could unravel as the country’s political factions contend for power.
After the Aug. 19 suicide truck bombings on the Iraqi foreign and finance ministries, which left about 100 dead, government officials said that Iraq’s security forces had been infiltrated. Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has blamed the attacks on elements of late dictator Sad dam Hussein’s Baath Party. The U.S. military has insisted that the attacks have failed to bring about a return of the country’s sectarian war.
