BBC: Iraq's descent into bombing quagmire

"Here in Baghdad, it's beginning to feel like a critical moment.

"In the last week this city has seen 22 car bombs, with 10 on a single day - last Friday. Not far from Baghdad, at Musayyib, between Hilla and Karbala, nearly 100 Shia Muslims were killed.

"The shadowy resistance movements seem to be operating on a new and much more ambitious level.

"Last summer, and in the summer of 2003, there were similar peaks, though much lower ones: The ferocious heat seems to produce new reserves of anger and violence here. "
Source: BBC News

Conflict 'kills 25,000 Iraqis'
"Nearly 25,000 civilians have died violently in Iraq since the US-led invasion in March 2003, a report says.

"Based on more than 10,000 media reports, the dossier is the first detailed account of such deaths.

"'The ever-mounting Iraqi death toll is the forgotten cost of the decision to go to war in Iraq,' said John Sloboda, one of the report authors."
BBC News