Official: Al-Qaeda in Iraq strongest since 2006

Sinan Salaheddin | Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — The head of the national counterterrorism center says the al-Qaeda affiliate in Iraq is the strongest it's been since a peak in 2006.

Matt Olsen says al-Qaeda in Iraq has increased the pace of attacks this year.

Olsen is testifying to a Senate committee on the current terror threat to the U.S.

Olsen did not say that al-Qaeda in Iraq poses a direct threat to the U.S. He says the group continues to operate in Syria as well.

In 2006, the group was at its peak in Iraq when it bombed a Shiite mosque and heightened sectarian killings.

On Tuesday, triple bombings struck a group of Shiites marking Ashoura in the eastern city of Baqouba, a former al-Qaeda stronghold, 35 miles northeast of Baghdad, killing eight people, including two children, and wounding 35.

Iraq has been hit by a surge in violence and insurgent attacks since April, when security forces cracked down on a Sunni protest camp in the north. The pace of the killings has soared to levels not seen since 2008.

More than 5,500 people died since April, according to United Nations figures. Thursday's attacks bring the death toll across the country this month to 176, according to an Associated Press count.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the latest attacks, but suicide attacks and other bombings — especially against Shiites and Iraqi forces — are a favorite tactic of al-Qaeda's local branch.