A suicide bomber detonated a car filled with explosives, mortars and rockets yesterday near the gates of a US base in the northern city of Mosul, killing an Iraqi guard, a woman and a child, the military said. Three American soldiers were injured by the blast.
A militant group, meanwhile, released a video on pan-Arab TV station al Jazeera saying it had taken hostage two Pakistanis working for US forces and sentenced them to death because their country was discussing sending troops to Iraq. It was latest in a wave of abductions of foreigners designed to force their countries to rethink sending troops to Iraq.
In a separate video aired by Arab stations yesterday, kidnappers extended a deadline for their demands to be met for the release of seven foreign drivers abducted in Iraq.
In Mosul, employees leaving the American base, located at a converted airport, said they saw the bomber drive a vehicle to the gates before it exploded, setting nearby cars on fire.
US military spokeswoman Captain Angela Bowman said a woman and a child standing near the explosion were killed, as well as an Iraqi guard. Three US soldiers and three Iraqi guards were injured in the attack, she said.
Mosul has been the scene of numerous terrorist attacks, including two car bombings in January and last month that each killed nine people.
In Basra, insurgents killed two Iraqi women yesterday working as cleaners with British forces in southern Iraq and seriously injured two others, police and hospital officials said.
Lieutenant Colonel Ali Kadhem, of Basra police, said attackers drove alongside the women's car as they were driving to work at Basra airport and sprayed gun fire at them. He said that two women were killed and two injured.
All four worked as cleaners at the airport, which is used as a base by British forces. Insurgents have routinely targeted Iraqis working for coalition forces, describing them as collaborators with occupation troops.
Also yesterday, attackers shot and killed a senior Interior Ministry official and two of his bodyguards in a drive-by shooting at the official's Baghdad home, according to the Interior Ministry.
Colonel Musab al-Awadi, the ministry's deputy chief of tribal affairs, and his guards had just left the house in al-Baya neighborhood when the gunmen drove up and shot them, according to an Interior Ministry spokesman.
A group calling itself the Islamic Army in Iraq announced yesterday that it had kidnapped the two Pakistanis and an Iraqi contract driver.
The video aired on al Jazeera briefly showed the three men and included a statement by the militant group saying it had issued a death sentence against the two Pakistanis. The group did not say when it would kill the men. The Pakistani government had declared the two men, Raja Azad, 49, an engineer, and Sajad Naeem, 29, a driver, missing over the weekend.
The statement by the militant group said it was imposing the death sentence on the men in part because of Pakistani President General Pervez Musharraf's statements about the possibility of sending troops to Iraq.
The statement also warned the Kuwaiti firm to stop doing business in Iraq or it would kill more of its employees.
In a separate hostage-taking, Arab satellite television stations aired video footage of kidnappers extending a deadline for their demands to be met for the release of seven foreign drivers abducted last week. The brief taped segments, showing the seven subdued-looking hostages wearing the white, traditional Arab men's gowns and kneeling and sitting on the floor, did not say how long the deadline had been extended.
In the tape, the kidnappers called themselves "The Holders of the Black Banners."
Also see story:
Rainfall is expected to become more widespread and persistent across central and southern Taiwan over the next few days, with the effects of the weather patterns becoming most prominent between last night and tomorrow, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Independent meteorologist Daniel Wu (吳德榮) said that based on the latest forecast models of the combination of a low-pressure system and southwesterly winds, rainfall and flooding are expected to continue in central and southern Taiwan from today to Sunday. The CWA also warned of flash floods, thunder and lightning, and strong gusts in these areas, as well as landslides and fallen
WAITING GAME: The US has so far only offered a ‘best rate tariff,’ which officials assume is about 15 percent, the same as Japan, a person familiar with the matter said Taiwan and the US have completed “technical consultations” regarding tariffs and a finalized rate is expected to be released soon, Executive Yuan spokeswoman Michelle Lee (李慧芝) told a news conference yesterday, as a 90-day pause on US President Donald Trump’s “reciprocal” tariffs is set to expire today. The two countries have reached a “certain degree of consensus” on issues such as tariffs, nontariff trade barriers, trade facilitation, supply chain resilience and economic security, Lee said. They also discussed opportunities for cooperation, investment and procurement, she said. A joint statement is still being negotiated and would be released once the US government has made
SOUTH CHINA SEA? The Philippine president spoke of adding more classrooms and power plants, while skipping tensions with China over disputed areas Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr yesterday blasted “useless and crumbling” flood control projects in a state of the nation address that focused on domestic issues after a months-long feud with his vice president. Addressing a joint session of congress after days of rain that left at least 31 dead, Marcos repeated his recent warning that the nation faced a climate change-driven “new normal,” while pledging to investigate publicly funded projects that had failed. “Let’s not pretend, the people know that these projects can breed corruption. Kickbacks ... for the boys,” he said, citing houses that were “swept away” by the floods. “Someone has
‘CRUDE’: The potential countermeasure is in response to South Africa renaming Taiwan’s representative offices and the insistence that it move out of Pretoria Taiwan is considering banning exports of semiconductors to South Africa after the latter unilaterally downgraded and changed the names of Taiwan’s two representative offices, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) said yesterday. On Monday last week, the South African Department of International Relations and Cooperation unilaterally released a statement saying that, as of April 1, the Taipei Liaison Offices in Pretoria and Cape Town had been renamed the “Taipei Commercial Office in Johannesburg” and the “Taipei Commercial Office in Cape Town.” Citing UN General Assembly Resolution 2758, it said that South Africa “recognizes the People’s Republic of China (PRC) as the sole
RSS