Waking up from a coma

It must be my blog was in coma. It's been a long long time since I've published my last posting here. Loads of excuses I can say such as being busy, lacking motivation or not having something significant to write about. But that's not important now. I'm here and thanks to Cecile who suggested me to go re-blogging again.

My blog has been reshaped the way you see it now. I've added some new gadgets and updated some stuff.

I like it. I hope you like it as well.

I've visited the Iraq Blog Count blog to see which blogs are still active and which are not. I wasn't really surprised to find out many blogs have been "dead" for years. Even the blog count is inactive itself. Funny to know that their last post published in 2006 is titled "This blog is still alive..". I think loads of Iraqi bloggers shared my lack of enthusiasm. I know some of them are posting somewhere else (i.e facebook, twitter, google+). Anyway I hope the rest are all safe and ok.

So you wanna hear from me a bit? I'm alive. I still live in Iraq. In Baghdad. The situation here in Iraq these days is at the tipping point after the recent bomb attacks in Baghdad and other Iraqi governorates.

Every Thursday night, I go out with friends to some social club where we can enjoy having drinks, playing a game of bingo and having chit chats. However, last Thursday, we didn't have our usual booze night because all the social clubs that serve alcohol and the liquor stores were closed until further notice. The closure of liquor stores and pubs came as a precautious step after gunmen opened fire on a line of liquor stores in the Zayona area of Baghdad, killing 12 people who were all Yezidis. With alcohol being forbidden in Islam, liquor stores run by members of religious minorities in Iraq are a source of target for Islamic extremist groups. Now, I heard that few alcohol vendors started to re-open their stores again but still wary.

The spike of violence in Iraq is rising after more than 130 people have been killed in bombings targeted both Shiite and Sunni populated areas and my worst fears that this could lead to a new sectarian fight.

Last Friday, twin bombings near a public café in Al Dora, the neighborhood I'm living in, killed 4 people and wounded 12. Both bombs exploded consecutively within short interval of time around 8 o'clock in the evening. I live about 2 kilometers away from the bombing scene but I heard the two blasts and I could hear the siren of ambulance and police cars afterwards.

Other bombing attacks killed 70 civilians and injured dozens in Sunni-majority areas like Al Amiriyah, Madain, Baquba and Fallujah. Those attacks were considered as "Revenge attacks" after a string of bombings that hit seven different areas of the capital, many of them Shiite-majority, killed nearly 35 people.

Now we have attacks on both Sunni and Shiite highly populated areas. Whoever is doing that has a purpose to ignite a new sectarian fight similar to the one of 2006-2007 that brought the country to the edge of civil war. This time things may get even worse. This time no American troops in Iraq to stop it.

I fear the worst is yet to come.

Peace out.

Blog Update : May 21 2013
This evening there was another bombing attack in our neighborhood. The bomb was placed inside a youth social center. Casualties are not known yet. That's the info I got so far. I'll keep you updated.