Bombing in Baghdad? Really?

Michael Schmidt has an article in The New York Times about more trouble in Baghdad:

Violence erupted north of Baghdad as a suicide bomber attacked at a mosque, and then several hours later another suicide bomber attacked the hospital where the wounded were being treated.
Nineteen people died in the attacks, which occurred in Tikrit, the hometown of Saddam Hussein. Among the dead were the mosque’s imam and several local government officials, a local security official said. At least fifty people were wounded.
The attacks came just a day after a suicide bomber in the western city of Ramadi detonated an explosive device at the entrance to a local hospital as ambulances carrying the wounded arrived from the scene of another bombing.
About 1 p.m. on Friday in Tikrit, a suicide bomber detonated an explosive device in the center of the mosque during Friday Prayer, causing the dome to collapse onto worshipers. Seconds later, an improvised explosive device was detonated just outside the mosque. Seventeen people died in the explosions, including two members of the provincial council, a judge and a police colonel, and fifty were wounded.
Six hours later, another suicide bomber detonated a device at the hospital where a member of Parliament from the province was visiting the wounded. Two people died in that attack, including a guard for the member of Parliament; two people were wounded.
Tikrit, a predominantly Sunni city and the capital of Salahuddin province, remains one of Iraq’s more violent cities. Two months ago, gunmen wearing police uniforms and suicide vests stormed the office of the provincial council in Tikrit, killing at least fifty and wounding nearly a hundred. In January, a suicide bomber attacked a crowd of prospective police recruits, killing at least fifty people and wounding more than a hundred.
The attack raised more questions about security in the city. The mosque is in a heavily fortified area, where many of the province’s military and political leaders live. “I don’t know how they were able to put these explosive devices in such a secure area,” said Hussein al-Shatub, a member of the local provincial council, who said he was standing at the gate to the mosque at the time of the attack. “I was at the main gate of the mosque on my way to pray when the explosion occurred,” Mr. al-Shatub said. “I started evacuating injured people to the hospital. It was a huge explosion.” Mr. al-Shatub blamed al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia, which claimed responsibility for the attack on the provincial council office two months ago. “They want to show the world they exist, and did this as revenge for Osama bin Laden’s death,” he said.

Rico says the Iraqis had fuck-all to do with the death of Osama bin Laden, so he's unclear on why, other than their a convenient (and easier) target, the Iraqis got hit...