One Day in Iraq: Story of Hawija

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One Day in Iraq: Story of Hawija
By Martin Asser
BBC News

As we set out on 7 June to chart in detail that day's events in Iraq, it all began very quietly - though we would have done well to note the observation of contributor Maysoon al-Damluji that insurgency attacks tend to start mid-morning.

There were no reports of violence from any Iraqi city for the first few hours, and our first-person contributors made a point of saying how peaceful things were.

The first hint of bloodshed came just before 1000 local time (0600 GMT) - a police officer reported seriously wounded in a gun attack in Baghdad.

At 1030, all attention moved to Hawija, a rural area of northern Iraq, which in the last half hour had been hit by a deadly co-ordinated quadruple bombing.

Such attacks may have decreased in the past two weeks - in Baghdad there is a major drive to prevent the movement of explosives, fighters and weapons - but the Hawija attacks show that the bombers can still strike wherever they wish.

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http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4076878.stm