Just another day in the life and death of Iraq IX

By Creature

Following the lead of Michael's hugely successful Just Another Day series, here is a touch of good news, sprinkled amongst the bad, coming out of Iraq today. One province down, seventeen to go.

British and Australian forces handed over security responsibility for relatively peaceful Muthanna province to Iraqi forces on Thursday in the first such transfer of an entire province.

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki hailed the security transfer as an important step toward the goal of full Iraqi responsibility for all 18 provinces by the end of next year.

I'm going to hold back all judgement and snark on this one. Well, except to say that this hand-over event feels more like a Bush "mission accomplished" moment than a true turning point. Time will tell, of course.

Outside of the "relatively peaceful" Muthanna province it was business as usual.

A car bomb struck a police patrol in the oil-rich northern city of Kirkuk on Thursday, killing three policemen and wounding five.

A postal policeman also was killed in a drive-by shooting in southwestern Baghdad.

Gunmen attacked a minivan that was coming from the Shiite holy city of Karbala to Baghdad, killing the driver and wounding four passengers.

Gunmen at a fake checkpoint also killed four policemen from Karbala after stopping their car in the volatile Baghdad neighborhood of Dora as they were heading home after a training course on Wednesday.

A roadside bomb struck an Iraqi army convoy on a highway northwest of Baghdad, wounding four Iraqi soldiers.

Gunmen killed a policeman wearing civilian clothes while he was getting his car repaired in the northwestern city of Mosul.

Five soldiers also were wounded in a roadside bomb in Mosul.

A bomb exploded near street sweepers in the southeastern New Baghdad neighborhood in the capital, killing two people and wounding one.

Just another day.

(Cross-posted at State of the Day.)