Possibilities

Updated I don't know if there's a connection between these two items, but there's a real temptation to think so. First, from CNN for Tuesday.

Mosul, Iraq - A lunchtime attack on a U.S. military mess hall in northern Iraq on Tuesday killed 24 people, including Americans and Iraqis, said Lt. Col. Paul Hastings at Camp Marez.

Brig. Gen. Carter Ham, commander of Task Force Olympia in Mosul, said the attack - a large, single explosion - wounded more than 60 people.

The dead include U.S. military personnel, U.S. contractors, foreign contractors and members of the Iraqi army, Ham said.

The "large, single explosion" was powerful enough that

[s]oldiers were knocked off their feet and out of their seats. A fireball enveloped the top of the tent, and shrapnel sprayed into

those in the tent, according to an embedded reporter. This does not sound like an ordinary mortar round. And that's what got me thinking about the other item, from the December 16 edition of the Iraqi Press Monitor, citing the daily paper of the Al-Mada institution for Media, Culture, and Arts.

Cells of the so-called Mujahideen Battalions helped by former military industrialization engineers and Iraqi army men could develop a Farooq 1 missile with a range of 26km. The cells have already succeeded in testing this missile, which last month hit many military targets of the US Army in different areas of Ninawa Province. The Mujahideen Battalions issued an announcement saying there also have been attempts to manufacture other weapons. A security source in Ninawa told Al-Mada that local missiles hit targets of the multi-national forces, which were silent about this issue.

There may be a serious, serious escalation of violence on the horizon. I say may be, it's obviously not certain and one incident does not establish a trend - but it's a profoundly disturbing possibility.

Updated with later news. According to ABC News,

investigators at the U.S. base in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul found remnants of a torso and a suicide vest - probably a backpack - meant to carry explosives. ...

An Army official at the Pentagon said a suicide bomber or a bomb planted inside the tented dining hall by an attacker who infiltrated Forward Operating Base Marez were two possibilities being explored in Tuesday's attack, which killed 22 and injured at least 70. ...

U.S. officials initially said rocket and mortar rounds were fired at the base, but the Iraqi militant group Ansar al-Sunna claimed responsibility, saying a suicide bomber carried out the attack.

The initial reports of rocket attacks are what got me thinking about the possibility it was the new short-range missile that insurgents are claiming to have developed. Because, again, this sure does not sound like a single mortar round. But a suicide bomber would fit the description - and move the Farooq 1 back to the status of a claim.