Guerrillas detonated a car bomb outside an Iraqi security force base just north of Baghdad yesterday, killing nine people and wounding dozens in the latest attack on Iraqis cooperating with occupying troops.
With the formal handover of sovereignty to an Iraqi government less than four weeks away, Baghdad has seen a surge in deadly attacks in recent days.
The 15-nation UN Security Council was called into a special session yesterday amid signs that the US is close to securing agreement on a draft UN resolution on the future of Iraq after June 30.
"A vehicle-borne improvised explosive device was detonated," US Major Andreas Dekunpfy said at the scene of the blast at the Iraqi Civil Defense Corps base in Taji. US troops are also based nearby.
It was not clear whether the bombing was a suicide attack, a tactic regularly used by insurgents.
The US military said six people were killed, but hospital officials later said nine Iraqis were killed and 61 wounded.
On Saturday, two soldiers were killed and two wounded when a bomb was detonated near their convoy in the northeast of the capital. The previous day, five soldiers were killed in a guerrilla attack in the same area.
Insurgents also attacked foreigners traveling in civilian four-wheel drive vehicles on the airport road on Saturday. After the attack two vehicles were in flames and witnesses said they saw at least two bodies. The US military had no information.
South of Baghdad, gunmen burst into a police station in the town of Mussayab on Saturday and forced police into a cell before detonating explosives in the building, police said. They said at least 10 policemen and two civilians were killed.
Iraqi police and security personnel are regularly targeted by guerrillas, who have repeatedly threatened Iraqis who work with occupying troops and foreign organizations.
Also see story:
Taiwan has arranged for about 8 million barrels of crude oil, or about one-third of its monthly needs, to be shipped from the Red Sea this month to bypass the Strait of Hormuz and ease domestic supply pressures, CPC Corp, Taiwan (CPC, 台灣中油) said yesterday. The state-run oil company has worked with Middle Eastern suppliers to secure routes other than the Strait of Hormuz, through which about 20 percent of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas typically passes, CPC chairman Fang Jeng-zen (方振仁) said at a meeting of the legislature’s Economics Committee in Taipei. Suppliers in Saudi Arabia have indicated they
A global survey showed that 60 percent of Taiwanese had attained higher education, second only to Canada, the Ministry of the Interior said. Taiwan easily surpassed the global average of 43 percent and ranked ahead of major economies, including Japan, South Korea and the US, data from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) for 2024 showed. Taiwan has a high literacy rate, data released by the ministry showed. As of the end of last year, Taiwan had 20.617 million people aged 15 or older, accounting for 88.5 percent of the total population, with a literacy rate of 99.4 percent, the data
CCP ‘PAWN’? Beijing could use the KMT chairwoman’s visit to signal to the world that many people in Taiwan support the ‘one China’ principle, an academic said Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) yesterday arrived in China for a “peace” mission and potential meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), while a Taiwanese minister detailed the number of Chinese warships currently deployed around the nation. Cheng is visiting at a time of increased Chinese military pressure on Taiwan, as the opposition-dominated Legislative Yuan stalls a government plan for US$40 billion in extra defense spending. Speaking to reporters before going to the airport, Cheng said she was going on a “historic journey for peace,” but added that some people felt uneasy about her trip. “If you truly love Taiwan,
NEW LOW: The council in 2024 based predictions on a pessimistic estimate for the nation’s total fertility rate of 0.84, but last year that rate was 0.69, 17 percent lower An expected National Development Council (NDC) report expects the nation’s population to drop below 12 million by 2065, with the old-age dependency ratio to top 100 percent sooner than 2070, sources said yesterday. The council is slated to release its latest population projections in August, using an ultra-low fertility model, the sources said. The previous report projected that Taiwan’s population would fall to 14.37 million by 2070, but based on a new estimate of the total fertility rate (TFR) — the average number of children born to a woman over her lifetime — the population is expected to reach 12 million by
RSS