Iraqi deaths rise after U.S. withdrawal

BAGHDAD, Jan. 28 (UPI) -- Deaths of Iraqis since the U.S. military withdrew in mid-December have reached one of the highest tolls for that amount of time in two years, statistics show.

Security officials say 31 people, including eight police officers, were killed by a suicide car bomb near a funeral procession in a Shiite neighborhood in Baghdad, bringing the number of Iraqis killed in attacks since mid-December to 434, The New York Times reported.

The newspaper said the violence in the past five weeks has left Iraqis fearing their leaders, involved in a political fight with one another, aren't prepared to stop attacks without U.S. help.

The attacks have targeted primarily Shiites and raised concerns about whether al-Qaida in Iraq has strengthened after being weakened in 2008. On its Web site, the group said it had put more emphasis on those with close ties to Iran, especially Iraq's Shiites, as it tries to reduce Iran's influence in Iraq after the U.S. withdrawal.

But Iraqi security officials said they've been more successful recently in fighting insurgents.

Acting Interior Minister Adnan al-Asadi told the Times when U.S. forces were in Iraq, they made it more difficult to battle al-Qaida.

He said Americans "were slowing our operations. Sometimes we would arrest a bad guy, and they would get involved and say, 'That is our guy,' and they would have him set free."

Asadi said even without U.S. support to Iraqi security forces in counter-terrorism operations against al-Qaida, Iraqis have been able to arrest a "large number" of leaders of the group, sometimes as many as 50 a day.

The recent attacks, he said, were "just to prove that [al-Qaida is] still here."

In the Friday attack, the suicide bomber targeted a funeral procession for a man, his wife and son -- all fatally shot a day earlier. The Times said a young boy also was killed Friday in Baghdad in an explosion near a soccer field.