After Iraq attacks, calls for militias grow

At least 22 Iraqis were killed by four suicide bombs Sunday, a day after more than 90 died in an attack.
By Neil MacDonald | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor, July 18, 2005

BAGHDAD - A devastating blast south of Baghdad, the latest in a series of suicide attacks aimed at undermining Iraq's US-mentored political process, has raised the temperature between Sunni and Shiite political factions and revived dormant questions about the effectiveness of government security forces.
The attack Saturday evening, involving a tanker truck at a gas station near a Shiite mosque, killed more than 90 people and wounded more than 150 in Musayyib, a mixed Sunni-Shiite town 40 miles south of Baghdad. It was the deadliest attack since the elected government took power at the end of April.
And Sunday, four suicide car bombers in Baghdad attacked security patrols and offices of Iraq's electoral commission, killing at least 22 people. On Friday, there were at least seven suicide attacks throughout the country that killed some 30 people. This all came on the heels of last week's suicide bombing that took the lives of some 50 people, including more than two-dozen children.