Shiite militants and US forces battled yesterday in the Baghdad slum of Sadr City and a mortar barrage slammed into a busy eastern Baghdad neighborhood in a new round of violence in the capital that left five people dead and dozens wounded, officials said.
The violence came as war-weary Iraqis in the holy city of Najaf returned to their devastated offices and shops after three weeks of clashes there ended with a peace agreement.
PHOTO: EPA
Dozens of municipal workers were out for the first time in weeks, sweeping debris off roads lined with battle-scarred buildings, ripped up by US bombs.
Calm settled over the city a day after militants loyal to rebel Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr filed out of the revered Imam Ali Shrine and turned over the keys to Iraq's top Shiite cleric, symbolizing their acceptance of a peace deal to end the fighting against a combined US-Iraqi force.
But violence flared in Sadr City, an al-Sadr stronghold in Baghdad, between militants and US forces.
US soldiers in Humvees drove through the impoverished neighborhood with loudspeakers, demanding people stay home because coalition forces were "cleaning the area of armed men," according to an Associated Press reporter at the scene. Sporadic gunfire could be heard.
Saad al-Amili, a Health Ministry official, said three people were killed and 25 were wounded in the skirmishes.
Militants fired assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenades at US troops patrolling the area, said US Captain Brian O'Malley of the 1st Brigade Combat Team, adding that US forces suffered no casualties.
As the battles raged, insurgents fired a round of mortars into an eastern Baghdad neighborhood, killing two boys washing cars in a street near the former Iraqi National Olympic Committee building, said the Interior Ministry spokesman, Colonel Adnan Abdul-Rahman.
The CIA has a message for Chinese government officials worried about their place in Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) government: Come work with us. The agency released two Mandarin-language videos on social media on Thursday inviting disgruntled officials to contact the CIA. The recruitment videos posted on YouTube and X racked up more than 5 million views combined in their first day. The outreach comes as CIA Director John Ratcliffe has vowed to boost the agency’s use of intelligence from human sources and its focus on China, which has recently targeted US officials with its own espionage operations. The videos are “aimed at
STEADFAST FRIEND: The bills encourage increased Taiwan-US engagement and address China’s distortion of UN Resolution 2758 to isolate Taiwan internationally The Presidential Office yesterday thanked the US House of Representatives for unanimously passing two Taiwan-related bills highlighting its solid support for Taiwan’s democracy and global participation, and for deepening bilateral relations. One of the bills, the Taiwan Assurance Implementation Act, requires the US Department of State to periodically review its guidelines for engagement with Taiwan, and report to the US Congress on the guidelines and plans to lift self-imposed limitations on US-Taiwan engagement. The other bill is the Taiwan International Solidarity Act, which clarifies that UN Resolution 2758 does not address the issue of the representation of Taiwan or its people in
DEFENDING DEMOCRACY: Taiwan shares the same values as those that fought in WWII, and nations must unite to halt the expansion of a new authoritarian bloc, Lai said The government yesterday held a commemoration ceremony for Victory in Europe (V-E) Day, joining the rest of the world for the first time to mark the anniversary of the end of World War II in Europe. Taiwan honoring V-E Day signifies “our growing connections with the international community,” President William Lai (賴清德) said at a reception in Taipei on the 80th anniversary of V-E Day. One of the major lessons of World War II is that “authoritarianism and aggression lead only to slaughter, tragedy and greater inequality,” Lai said. Even more importantly, the war also taught people that “those who cherish peace cannot
US Indo-Pacific Commander Admiral Samuel Paparo on Friday expressed concern over the rate at which China is diversifying its military exercises, the Financial Times (FT) reported on Saturday. “The rates of change on the depth and breadth of their exercises is the one non-linear effect that I’ve seen in the last year that wakes me up at night or keeps me up at night,” Paparo was quoted by FT as saying while attending the annual Sedona Forum at the McCain Institute in Arizona. Paparo also expressed concern over the speed with which China was expanding its military. While the US
RSS