Healing sectarian rift

It seemed that never a day went by without a bomb attack in Iraq after the invasion by the United States in 2003.

That nightmare has not come to an end, even though the US troops have completed their withdrawal, as last week in the Iraqi capital, Baghdad, dozens of people were killed in a spate of apparently coordinated bomb attacks, the worst in months.

US President Barack Obama hailed the withdrawal as a moment of success and called the winding down of the conflict "an extraordinary achievement" declaring that US troops "will cross the border out of Iraq with their heads held high".