Written By Guy Taylor

The leading al Qaeda-inspired group in Syria and Iraq is tapping a “global network” of foreign fighters to carry out a surging number of suicide bombings in Iraq, the Obama administration’s top diplomat for the region said Wednesday.

Suicide bombings have more than tripled in Iraq over the past year, from an average of seven per month in 2012 to roughly 35 per in 2013, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Brett McGurk told the House Committee on Foreign Affairs.

He offered the statistics as violence rocked Baghdad Wednesday, when a wave of bombings — including one involving a suicide bomber who walked into a restaurant before detonating — killed at least 34 people near the Green Zone, the heavily fortified area where the U.S. Embassy is located.

“All of these... http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/feb/5/us-sees-global-terror-net...