CNN, Baghdad, Iraq, August 1, 2012   — Three-hundred and twenty five people died in violence in Iraq in July, making it the deadliest month in the restive country since August 2010, when 426 perished, the Interior Ministry said Wednesday.
One-hundred and three of them were killed on one single day — July 23 — in a string of attacks by an Islamist militant group.
The al Qaeda-affiliated Islamic State of Iraq claimed responsibility for that particular day of bloodshed, when 35 coordinated attacks ravaged seven Iraqi provinces. ISI militants carried out assassinations and shootings as well as car and roadside bombings in an operation it termed “new phase.”
Of those the government officially tallied as having perished in July’s carnage, 241 were civilians, 44 Iraqi soldiers and 40 Iraqi police.
The number of wounded was more than double that of the dead, according to the data, which was compiled from records at the Health, Defense and Interior ministries. Of the 697 who sustained wounds, 480 were civilians, 95 soldiers and 122 police.
Although “terrorists” are excluded from the death toll list, 50 were killed in July, according to government figures, and another 300 were detained.
The last day of July was also particularly bloody, as attacks across the country — including two car bombs and three suicide bombings in central Baghdad — killed 20 and wounded 100.
Violence has dropped dramatically in Iraq since the peak of Sunni-Shiite clashes in 2006 and 2007 and the withdrawal of U.S. troops from the country in December, but insurgent attacks against civilians and security forces persist in the country, which is still smoldering with sectarian tension and political infighting.