A car bomb targeting Iraq's new justice minister blew up in western Baghdad yesterday, killing four of his bodyguards and wounding seven other people, authorities said. Justice Minister Malik Dohan al-Hassan was not injured.
The blast, the latest in a wave of assassination attempts of high-level government officials, ripped through an intersection 500m from al-Hassan's home, striking the tail end of his convoy.
"A car was parking on the opposite direction of the road, when the driver, God curse him, saw us and exploded himself," said Loae Hassan, one of his bodyguards.
South of the capital, another car bomb exploded outside an Iraqi National Guard headquarters in Mahmudiyah, 30km from Baghdad, killing two people and wounding 47 others, hospital officials said.
The blast that struck the minister's convoy carved a crater 2m in diameter and half a meter deep into the pavement. Flames lapped the charred skeleton of one car stopped alongside a pylon supporting a bridge.
Hassan said several members of the minister's security detail were killed in the blast that completely destroyed three vehicles in the convoy. Among the dead was the minister's nephew.
Though al-Hassan's bodyguards initially said five people had died, the Health Ministry put the number at four.
Shortly afterward, insurgents lobbed a hand grenade at a police patrol in the same neighborhood, badly injuring two police officers, said police Major Hashim Raed.
Insurgents also shot and killed a Jordanian truck driver in western Iraq yesterday and then gouged out his eyes, leaving his body by the side of the road, witnesses said.
The Philippines withdrew 11 more soldiers from Iraq on Friday to meet the demands of kidnappers holding a truck driver hostage, ignoring warnings from the US that the move sends the wrong signal to terrorists.
An Egyptian hostage being held in Iraq will also be released today, his Saudi employer said yesterday.
Two US House of Representatives committees yesterday condemned China’s attempt to orchestrate a crash involving Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim’s (蕭美琴) car when she visited the Czech Republic last year as vice president-elect. Czech local media in March last year reported that a Chinese diplomat had run a red light while following Hsiao’s car from the airport, and Czech intelligence last week told local media that Chinese diplomats and agents had also planned to stage a demonstrative car collision. Hsiao on Saturday shared a Reuters news report on the incident through her account on social media platform X and wrote: “I
SHIFT PRIORITIES: The US should first help Taiwan respond to actions China is already taking, instead of focusing too heavily on deterring a large-scale invasion, an expert said US Air Force leaders on Thursday voiced concerns about the Chinese People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) missile capabilities and its development of a “kill web,” and said that the US Department of Defense’s budget request for next year prioritizes bolstering defenses in the Indo-Pacific region due to the increasing threat posed by China. US experts said that a full-scale Chinese invasion of Taiwan is risky and unlikely, with Beijing more likely to pursue coercive tactics such as political warfare or blockades to achieve its goals. Senior air force and US Space Force leaders, including US Secretary of the Air Force Troy Meink and
‘BUILDING PARTNERSHIPS’: The US military’s aim is to continue to make any potential Chinese invasion more difficult than it already is, US General Ronald Clark said The likelihood of China invading Taiwan without contest is “very, very small” because the Taiwan Strait is under constant surveillance by multiple countries, a US general has said. General Ronald Clark, commanding officer of US Army Pacific (USARPAC), the US Army’s largest service component command, made the remarks during a dialogue hosted on Friday by Washington-based think tank the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Asked by the event host what the Chinese military has learned from its US counterpart over the years, Clark said that the first lesson is that the skill and will of US service members are “unmatched.” The second
Czech officials have confirmed that Chinese agents surveilled Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) during her visit to Prague in March 2024 and planned a collision with her car as part of an “unprecedented” provocation by Beijing in Europe. Czech Military Intelligence learned that their Chinese counterparts attempted to create conditions to carry out a demonstrative incident involving Hsiao, which “did not go beyond the preparation stage,” agency director Petr Bartovsky told Czech Radio in a report yesterday. In addition, a Chinese diplomat ran a red light to maintain surveillance of the Taiwanese