If this keeps up, it's ahrd to see how Iraq can avoid another sectarian bloodletting.

Wall Street Journal:

Dozens of people were killed and wounded when a suicide car bomber attacked a funeral procession in Baghdad on Friday, days after an al Qaeda-linked insurgent group warned it would step up its fight against Iraq's government, security forces and Shiite majority.

The suicide bomber rammed his explosives-laden vehicle into a crowd that included the pallbearers at a funeral for an Iraqi army commander's brother, according to a Ministry of Interior official. The brother had been assassinated along with three other people on Thursday.

Friday's attack in the predominantly Shiite neighborhood of Zafaraniyah on the capital's southeastern side left at least 31 people dead and 60 wounded, according to the official.

The explosion happened in a congested section of the working-class neighborhood near a hospital, an outdoor food market and an apartment building.

"I saw bodies strewn all over the place," said a witness. "The women fishmongers are all gone, not a single one is left."

Hours after the attack a fire truck was seen hosing down blood and debris at the scene as grieving families waited to receive the bodies of their loved ones from the hospital for burial.

In a separate attack before nightfall, a roadside bomb planted next to an outdoor soccer field in the predominantly Sunni neighborhood of Ghazaliya in western Baghdad killed one person and wounded three, according to the Ministry of Interior official. There was no claim of responsibility for Friday's attacks.

Without the professionalism and expertise of US troops, the Iraqi security forces are incapable of hunting down and killing the terrorists. It's one thing to have a few trainers trying to show Iraq's military the ins and outs of counterterrorism. It's quite another to gather intel, pinpoint terrorist hideouts, and task a unit to go in and take them out.

I would not like to be a Sunni in Iraq about a month from now.