Iraq's government will create a new security service specifically geared toward tackling the nearly 15-month-old insurgency in the country, Interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi said yesterday.
The new service, the General Security Directorate, "will annihilate those terrorist groups, God willing," Allawi said during a news conference.
Attackers detonated a car bomb near police and government buildings yesterday in the western city of Haditha, killing 10 Iraqis, including three police officers, in the latest in a series of insurgent attacks on Iraqi authorities.
Police apparently thwarted a second attack in Karbala, where officers chased a car after receiving a tip it was filled with explosives. The two people inside detonated their bomb, killing only themselves and causing no other casualties.
The violence came after a suicide attacker in Baghdad killed at least 10 people in a car bombing near Iraqi government headquarters and insurgents assassinated a provincial governor in an ambush of his convoy.
The attack in Haditha, known as a stronghold of former president Saddam Hussein's ousted regime, hit a government complex that houses the police station, civil defense headquarters and the municipal building. In addition to the 10 killed, the blast injured 27 people, said Colonel Adnan Abdel-Rahman, spokesman for the Interior Ministry.
Insurgents detonated a massive car bomb on Wednesday at a checkpoint just outside the so-called Green Zone, former home to the US occupation government and currently home to the Iraqi interim government and the US and British embassies. The blast ripped a deep crater in the road and killed 10 Iraqis, many as they waited in line to apply for jobs with the government, the Health Ministry said. The US military said 11 were killed.
Hours later, insurgents tossed hand grenades and fired machine guns at a convoy transporting Nineveh Governor Osama Youssef Kashmoula, killing him and two of his guards, Iraqi and US military officials said. Mosul is the largest city in Nineveh province.
Kashmoula was attacked between the cities of Beiji and Tikrit north of Baghdad as he traveled to the capital, the US military said. Four of the attackers were killed in the fight, Mosul officials said.
In the attack just outside Karbala yesterday, police chased down insurgents after getting a tip they had a car bomb, said Rahman Mshawi, a spokesman for the Karbala police.
"Finding themselves surrounded, the two persons inside detonated the car," Mshawi said.
In a separate attack early yesterday, a rocket landed on a home in the oil-rich city of Kirkuk, killing four people and injuring three others, police and hospital officials said.
A second rocket struck a home in a former army base now used by Kurdish refugees, injuring four people. The targets of the attacks were not immediately clear. Also yesterday, saboteurs damaged oil pipelines at separate sites in Iraq's north and south while insurgents gunned down an officer with the state-run oil company.
RESPONSE: The transit sends a message that China’s alignment with other countries would not deter the West from defending freedom of navigation, an academic said Canadian frigate the Ville de Quebec and Australian guided-missile destroyer the Brisbane transited the Taiwan Strait yesterday morning, the first time the two nations have conducted a joint freedom of navigation operation. The Canadian and Australian militaries did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The Ministry of National Defense declined to confirm the passage, saying only that Taiwan’s armed forces had deployed surveillance and reconnaissance assets, along with warships and combat aircraft, to safeguard security across the Strait. The two vessels were observed transiting northward along the eastern side of the Taiwan Strait’s median line, with Japan being their most likely destination,
GLOBAL ISSUE: If China annexes Taiwan, ‘it will not stop its expansion there, as it only becomes stronger and has more force to expand further,’ the president said China’s military and diplomatic expansion is not a sole issue for Taiwan, but one that risks world peace, President William Lai (賴清德) said yesterday, adding that Taiwan would stand with the alliance of democratic countries to preserve peace through deterrence. Lai made the remark in an exclusive interview with the Chinese-language Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times). “China is strategically pushing forward to change the international order,” Lai said, adding that China established the Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank, launched the Belt and Road Initiative, and pushed for yuan internationalization, because it wants to replace the democratic rules-based international
ECONOMIC BOOST: Should the more than 23 million people eligible for the NT$10,000 handouts spend them the same way as in 2023, GDP could rise 0.5 percent, an official said Universal cash handouts of NT$10,000 (US$330) are to be disbursed late next month at the earliest — including to permanent residents and foreign residents married to Taiwanese — pending legislative approval, the Ministry of Finance said yesterday. The Executive Yuan yesterday approved the Special Act for Strengthening Economic, Social and National Security Resilience in Response to International Circumstances (因應國際情勢強化經濟社會及民生國安韌性特別條例). The NT$550 billion special budget includes NT$236 billion for the cash handouts, plus an additional NT$20 billion set aside as reserve funds, expected to be used to support industries. Handouts might begin one month after the bill is promulgated and would be completed within
The National Development Council (NDC) yesterday unveiled details of new regulations that ease restrictions on foreigners working or living in Taiwan, as part of a bid to attract skilled workers from abroad. The regulations, which could go into effect in the first quarter of next year, stem from amendments to the Act for the Recruitment and Employment of Foreign Professionals (外國專業人才延攬及僱用法) passed by lawmakers on Aug. 29. Students categorized as “overseas compatriots” would be allowed to stay and work in Taiwan in the two years after their graduation without obtaining additional permits, doing away with the evaluation process that is currently required,
RSS