Three people were killed yesterday, including a US-led coalition soldier, when a military convoy was hit by a roadside bomb south of Iraq's main northern city of Mosul, the US military said.
Another soldier from the US-dominated Task Force Olympia, which patrols northern Iraq, was also wounded in the blast.
"While the injured soldier was being treated following the explosion, a vehicle approached at a high rate of speed and fired on the convoy. The soldiers returned fire, killing the driver. The roadside bomb explosion also killed an Iraqi citizen that was driving behind the Task Force Olympia convoy," the military's statement said.
The statement did not specify the soldiers' nationalities, but the force has only small numbers of Albanian and Australian troops alongside the main US force.
A militant group linked to Jordanian terror suspect Abu Musab al-Zarqawi yesterday claimed responsibility for an attack on a military headquarters in the city of Samarra that killed five US soldiers and an Iraqi National Guardsman.
The claim by al-Zarqawi's Tawhid and Jihad movement, posted on an Islamic Web site, said the assault on Thursday killed dozens of Americans and hundreds of Iraqis. The military said insurgents detonated a car bomb and then fired mortars at the building used jointly by the 1st Infantry Division and Iraqi guardsmen.
"One of the lions of the martyrs' brigade entered the building and destroyed it completely, plus six Hummers, including those who were inside them, thank God," the group said in its statement.
The movement said that as troops tried to escape from the building, "the soldiers of God were waiting for them and rained those who came with mortar shells."
The military said five soldiers and one Iraqi guardsman were killed in the attack.
Until last month, al-Zarqawi's network was thought to be responsible for car bombings and other terrorist-style attacks in Iraq that often killed dozens of civilians.
But last month, the group claimed responsibility for a spate of near-simultaneous attacks in four cities across Iraq that included car bombings as well as military-style ambushes on Iraqi security forces and US troops.
US military officials speculated Iraq's secular guerrillas, tied to the former regime of Saddam Hussein, were coordinating their attacks with al-Zarqawi, an alliance that alarmed military analysts in Iraq, which has been torn by violence since Saddam's fall more than 14 months ago.
On Saturday, US Marines clashed with guerrillas taking cover at a taxi stand in Ramadi, a stronghold of support for the former regime, killing three people and wounding five, military and hospital officials said.
Meanwhile, Bulgaria expressed hope that two Bulgarian truck drivers also kidnapped by militants remained alive.
Al-Zarqawi's group threatened to kill the men if the US did not release all Iraqi detainees -- an ultimatum that has expired.
GEOPOLITICAL SIGNIFICANCE: The CGA’s nonmilitary role makes it a tool to avert diplomatic issues, an official said, while confirming the donation of a ship to Manila Coast Guard Administration (CGA) ships are scheduled to sail to the Philippines bearing the words “Taiwan Coast Guard” in a high-profile visit in October next year, the first such visit by a Taiwanese maritime law enforcement vessel to the Southeast Asian nation, the agency said yesterday. The CGA also confirmed that it had donated one of its decommissioned patrol vessels to the Philippines in a rare transfer of a retired ship to a nondiplomatic ally. The Republic of China (ROC) Navy last made such a visit in 1974, shortly before the Philippines switched diplomatic recognition to the People’s Republic of China in
‘GLOBAL WARNING’: The infiltration is not just a local problem, as Beijing has been deploying the same tactics worldwide against Western democracies, a report said Between 50,000 and 100,000 Chinese spies are operating in Taiwan, far more than the National Security Bureau’s previous estimate of 5,000, German journalist and author Jurgen Kremb said on Monday. Kremb presented his research, titled “The War of Spies: How China’s Intelligence Services Are Infiltrating Taiwan — and What Europe Must Learn from It,” at a joint event held by the Taiwan offices of the Friedrich Naumann Foundation and the European Values Center for Security Policy. The report was published in June in the Ministry of Justice Investigation Bureau’s Prospect & Exploration Monthly (展望與探索月刊). By spies, he said he was referring to informants,
PRICE STABILIZATION: The Ministry of Economic Affairs has urged the legislature to support the Cabinet’s supplementary budget for state-owned energy companies State-owned oil supplier CPC Corp, Taiwan (CPC, 台灣中油) on Saturday announced that it would raise domestic gasoline prices by NT$0.7 (US$0.02) per liter and diesel prices by NT$0.6 per liter this week after international crude oil prices rose above US$100 per barrel last week. Formosa Petrochemical Corp (台塑石化) yesterday said that it matched CPC’s price adjustments for this week. The decisions end a six-week period during which CPC and Formosa kept fuel prices in Taiwan unchanged. Retail gasoline prices this week would rise to NT$31.2, NT$32.7 and NT$34.7 per liter for 92, 95 and 98-octane unleaded gasoline respectively at CPC
WASHINGTON MEETING: Japan’s Hirofumi Takinami said participants rejected the idea that the US should limit its defensive perimeter to the Second Island Chain US and Japanese lawmakers agree that the US must defend the First Island Chain, including Taiwan, and should not fall back to the Second Island Chain, while “a Taiwan contingency is a Japan contingency and therefore a US-Japan alliance contingency,” media reported after a meeting between officials of the two nations in Washington on Tuesday. A delegation of Japanese lawmakers from the Liberal Democratic Party met with US Senator Thom Tillis, co-chair of the Senate Taiwan Caucus, and US Representative Ami Bera, co-chair of the US Congressional Taiwan caucus, to discuss issues concerning East Asia and the Taiwan Strait. The Japanese and
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