Up to nine coalition soldiers and 24 Iraqis were killed and more than 200 people wounded, after a radical Shiite leader urged his supporters to "terrorize" the enemy, while top US lawmakers called for more US troops in Iraq.
It was the worst fighting between US forces and the country's Shiite majority since the US-led invasion of Iraq one year ago when US troops were welcomed as liberators by the community.
PHOTO: AFP
Late Sunday, a pitched battle with the militia of young Shiite firebrand Moqtada Sadr claimed the lives of seven US soldiers in the poverty-stricken Baghdad suburb of Sadr City.
Top US lawmakers, questioning whether the June 30 deadline for handover to Iraqi sovereignty was realistic in light of the upsurge in violence, called for more US troops in Iraq.
"I think it's probably time to have that debate," Senator Richard Lugar of Indiana, Republican chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told ABC. He called the employment of 3,000 people in a future US embassy there, amid no current nomination for an ambassador "a huge new exposure of Americans."
The US-led coalition occupying Iraq, under pressure from its allies and factions inside Iraq, agreed last year to hand over sovereignty to an interim government by July 1.
Lugar and the committee's leading Democrat, Senator Joseph Biden of Delaware, said the latest violence showed Iraqi security forces unprepared for the handover date.
They said more US troops would be needed to disarm militias threatening stability of a new Iraqi government.
In an ominous development that threatens to widen the rift between Iraq's Shiite majority and the occupation forces, Sadr told supporters to "terrorize" the enemy, saying demonstrations were now pointless.
"Terrorise your enemy, as we cannot remain silent over its violations," Sadr said in a statement distributed Sunday by his office in Kufa, south of Baghdad. It was not clear if Sadr was literally calling on his followers to resort to violence.
In the fighting in Baghdad, the US soldiers died trying to prevent members of Sadr's several thousand-strong Mehdi Army, militias made up of mainly unemployed, young Shiites, taking control of police and public buildings.
Ten Iraqis were wounded and a US military humvee vehicle was set ablaze.
EUROPEAN TARGETS: The planned Munich center would support TSMC’s European customers to design high-performance, energy-efficient chips, an executive said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday said that it plans to launch a new research-and-development (R&D) center in Munich, Germany, next quarter to assist customers with chip design. TSMC Europe president Paul de Bot made the announcement during a technology symposium in Amsterdam on Tuesday, the chipmaker said. The new Munich center would be the firm’s first chip designing center in Europe, it said. The chipmaker has set up a major R&D center at its base of operations in Hsinchu and plans to create a new one in the US to provide services for major US customers,
‘ABUSE OF POWER’: Lee Chun-yi allegedly used a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a pet grooming salon and take his wife to restaurants, media reports said Control Yuan Secretary-General Lee Chun-yi (李俊俋) resigned on Sunday night, admitting that he had misused a government vehicle, as reported by the media. Control Yuan Vice President Lee Hung-chun (李鴻鈞) yesterday apologized to the public over the issue. The watchdog body would follow up on similar accusations made by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and would investigate the alleged misuse of government vehicles by three other Control Yuan members: Su Li-chiung (蘇麗瓊), Lin Yu-jung (林郁容) and Wang Jung-chang (王榮璋), Lee Hung-chun said. Lee Chun-yi in a statement apologized for using a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a
BEIJING’S ‘PAWN’: ‘We, as Chinese, should never forget our roots, history, culture,’ Want Want Holdings general manager Tsai Wang-ting said at a summit in China The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday condemned Want Want China Times Media Group (旺旺中時媒體集團) for making comments at the Cross-Strait Chinese Culture Summit that it said have damaged Taiwan’s sovereignty, adding that it would investigate if the group had colluded with China in the matter and contravened cross-strait regulations. The council issued a statement after Want Want Holdings (旺旺集團有限公司) general manager Tsai Wang-ting (蔡旺庭), the third son of the group’s founder, Tsai Eng-meng (蔡衍明), said at the summit last week that the group originated in “Chinese Taiwan,” and has developed and prospered in “the motherland.” “We, as Chinese, should never
‘A SURVIVAL QUESTION’: US officials have been urging the opposition KMT and TPP not to block defense spending, especially the special defense budget, an official said The US plans to ramp up weapons sales to Taiwan to a level exceeding US President Donald Trump’s first term as part of an effort to deter China as it intensifies military pressure on the nation, two US officials said on condition of anonymity. If US arms sales do accelerate, it could ease worries about the extent of Trump’s commitment to Taiwan. It would also add new friction to the tense US-China relationship. The officials said they expect US approvals for weapons sales to Taiwan over the next four years to surpass those in Trump’s first term, with one of them saying
RSS