While on 15 April the whole world was focused on the Boston marathon blasts, at least 79 people were killed, and over three hundred others injured – mostly civilians – in a series of bombings and armed attacks across Iraq.

Twenty-six car bombs were involved, as well as sixteen IED’s and four other armed attacks, all in separate incidents.

Eight car bombs exploded in different areas across Baghdad.

Another car bomb targeted the Baghdad International Airport before it was shelled by mortars.

Three more car bombs exploded in Kirkuk. Armed clashes broke out in downtown Samarra, along with a car bomb and mortar shelling.

A car bomb and two IED’s struck Baquba. An IED exploded in Fallujah. The district of Tuz Khormatu (northeast of Tikrit) experienced some of the worst violence, with the detonation of five car bombs and three IED’s.

Government forces launched a series of searches and raids in Karbala, Maysan, and Ninawa, detaining twenty-six people from Karbala, twenty-one from Maysan, and twelve from Ninawa.

The arrests were arbitrary, with flimsy charges against the suspects.

Arsonists in the Fire Department?

The two men, accused of the Boston Marathon bombings are Tamerlan Tsarnaev, who was killed, and his younger brother Dzhokhar, who is being treated with shot wounds.

End of story? Not really.There are a number of questions that need to be answered. A police official source in Makhachkala, Dagestan, told NBC News on Sunday that the Russian internal security service reached out to the FBI last November with some questions about Tamerlan, and handed over a copy of case file on him.The FBI never responded.

In his Global Research article: “Contractors” at Boston Marathon Stood Near Bomb, Left Before Detonation, Tony Cartalucci wrote on 19 April:

“What appear to be private contractors, wearing unmarked, matching uniforms and operating an unmarked SUV affixed with communication equipment near the finish line of the Boston Marathon shortly after the bomb blasts – can be seen beforehand, standing and waiting just meters away from where the first bomb was detonated.

The contractor-types had moved away from the bomb’s location before it detonated, and could be seen just across the street using communication equipment and waiting for similar dressed and equipped individuals to show up after the blasts.”

On Thursday night 18 April a bomb exploded in a popular coffee shop in the Al Amiriya District in Western Baghdad, killing at least 27 people and wounding 51 others.

The bomb was hidden in a plastic bag and then put in the coffee house, where it detonated around 10 p.m. The device contained about two kilograms of highly explosive material.

The explosion ripped through the three-story building, which also includes an ice cream parlor on the first floor and medical offices on the second floor. The coffee shop was on the third floor.Most of those killed and hurt were young men, though four children were among the dead.