At around 7:00am this morning a truck bomb detonated on the Sarafiyah Bridge, a key span across the Tigris in downtown Baghdad. Around lunchtime, reports started coming in of a bombing attack in the cafeteria of the Council of Representatives, Iraq's national parliament. The rest of the day was spent in anticipation. Three just makes a much more powerful statement. Of course the third will probably happen later tonight, and it will be the mass execution of a group of Sunnis. This is what a 'cycle of violence' means. Like a vicious sport where each serve brings a deadly return. Sudden death. Startling acts of terrorism by Sunni/al-Qaeda/Arab foreigners earn a brutal response by the Shia/Iranian-sponsored militia death squads. These are the opponents in this death-match; the spectators get to take turns as victims.
The destruction of the bridge is a strategic strike; much like the attack that destroyed the Golden Dome of the al-Askari Mosque in Samarra last year this event is intended to drive the wedge between Sunni and Shia even deeper. Neighborhoods are more and more segregated in Baghdad as residents have fled mixed areas to be with relatives in more ethnically homogeneous neighborhoods. The Sarafiyah Bridge is one of several bridges that connect the historically Shia district of Kadhamiya and the ancient Sunni district of Adhamiya. The collapse of this bridge means a physical and symbolic separation of these communities. I vividly remember the tragedy of the Aimma Bridge, when a stampede of pilgrims crushed hundreds and saw many plummet into the river after the collapse of a fence barrier. This bridge has been closed since summer 2005, preventing the Shia tradition of walking from Kadhamiya to Adhamiya from being continued. The divide between these historic communities, and thus the heart of Baghdad's cultural life, is now a gaping chasm.
