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asked community members to chip in.
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With suicide blasts and waves of car bombs, al-Qaida picking up tempo of attacks in Iraq
• BAGHDAD (AP) -- First came the fireball, then the screams of the victims. The suicide bombing just outside a Baghdad graveyard knocked Nasser Waleed Ali over and peppered his back with shrapnel.
• Ali was one of the lucky ones. At least 51 died in the Oct. 5 attack, many of them Shiite pilgrims walking by on their way to a shrine. No one has claimed responsibility, but there is little doubt al-Qaida's local franchise is to blame. Suicide bombers and car bombs are its calling cards, Shiite civilians among its favorite targets.
• Al-Qaida has come roaring back in Iraq since U.S. troops left in late 2011 and now looks stronger than it has in years. The terror group has shown it is capable of carrying out mass-casualty attacks several times a month, driving the death toll in Iraq to the highest level in half a decade. It sees each attack as a way to cultivate an atmosphere of chaos that weakens the Shiite-led government's authority.
• Recent prison breaks have bolstered al-Qaida's ranks, while feelings of Sunni marginalization and the chaos caused by the civil war in neighboring Syria are fueling its comeback.
• "Nobody is able to control this situation," said Ali, who watches over a Sunni graveyard that sprang up next to the hallowed Abu Hanifa mosque in 2006, when sectarian fighting threated to engulf Iraq in all-out civil war.
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Activists: Shelling by Syrian regime forces kills at least 11 in southern city
• BEIRUT (AP) -- Tank shells fired by Syrian government forces slammed into a building in a southern city, killing at least 11 people there, including women and children, activists said Sunday.
• The attack was part of the latest push by President Bashar Assad's troops to recapture land lost to rebels in the southern province and city of Daraa, the birthplace of Syria's uprising. It was there in 2011 that several youths were arrested for scrawling graffiti calling for Assad's downfall.
• The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which relies on a network of activists on the ground, said at least four women and three children, includ (Continued on page 31)
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