US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld yesterday made a surprise visit to Iraq, as US and Iraqi troops retook control of a police station south of Baghdad after a fierce battle that left dozens dead.
In further violence, at least seven people were killed at a bakery in the capital while five Iraqi soldiers died in attacks elsewhere.
Rumsfeld, the highest-ranking US official to visit Iraq since the landmark Jan. 30 elections, told US troops they could "go home with honor" once Iraqi forces were able to defeat insurgents on their own.
His first stop was the strife-torn northern city of Mosul and he then headed on to Baghdad for talks with officials.
He told several hundred soldiers, including some Iraqi forces gathered at Mosul's airport, that it would "take some time" to train security forces but the Iraqis must prepare themselves.
"Because it is the Iraqis who are going to have to, over time, defeat the insurgents. It is their country. It is their responsibility," Rumsfeld said.
"Once they have confidence and capacity and capability, our forces, coalition forces, will be able to go home. And go home with the honor you will have earned," he said.
The situation was tense in the Iraqi town of Salman Pak after a battle which saw rebels firing rockets, mortars and machine guns and besiege one police station in the town about 20km south of Baghdad.
American helicopters were sent to the scene Thursday and opened fired to dislodge the insurgents.
The town was sealed off yesterday by Iraqi and US troops but police said it was calm.
"According to our latest toll there were 10 police killed and 75 wounded," a Salman Pak police official told reporters.
He added that 46 police vehicles were destroyed and that the fighting lasted several hours.
Iraqi National Security Adviser Qassem Daoud said that 20 insurgents had been killed and 21 arrested.
"We have never seen such fighting," said the official in Salman Pak.
"Now the interior ministry quick reaction forces and American soldiers are in control."
The bodies of more than 20 truck drivers and four Iraqi police and soldiers were found in the same region.
Their convoy had been attacked at least two days earlier, police said, but no one had dared touch them.
In a further sign of insecurity, police said that at least seven people had died in an early morning attack on a bakery in eastern Baghdad.
"The attack on the `Happiness Bakery' opposite the Al-Rashad police station killed seven and we think this is a criminal or tribal dispute," police said.
ROLLER-COASTER RIDE: More than five earthquakes ranging from magnitude 4.4 to 5.5 on the Richter scale shook eastern Taiwan in rapid succession yesterday afternoon Back-to-back weather fronts are forecast to hit Taiwan this week, resulting in rain across the nation in the coming days, the Central Weather Administration said yesterday, as it also warned residents in mountainous regions to be wary of landslides and rockfalls. As the first front approached, sporadic rainfall began in central and northern parts of Taiwan yesterday, the agency said, adding that rain is forecast to intensify in those regions today, while brief showers would also affect other parts of the nation. A second weather system is forecast to arrive on Thursday, bringing additional rain to the whole nation until Sunday, it
LANDSLIDES POSSIBLE: The agency advised the public to avoid visiting mountainous regions due to more expected aftershocks and rainfall from a series of weather fronts A series of earthquakes over the past few days were likely aftershocks of the April 3 earthquake in Hualien County, with further aftershocks to be expected for up to a year, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Based on the nation’s experience after the quake on Sept. 21, 1999, more aftershocks are possible over the next six months to a year, the agency said. A total of 103 earthquakes of magnitude 4 on the local magnitude scale or higher hit Hualien County from 5:08pm on Monday to 10:27am yesterday, with 27 of them exceeding magnitude 5. They included two, of magnitude
CONDITIONAL: The PRC imposes secret requirements that the funding it provides cannot be spent in states with diplomatic relations with Taiwan, Emma Reilly said China has been bribing UN officials to obtain “special benefits” and to block funding from countries that have diplomatic ties with Taiwan, a former UN employee told the British House of Commons on Tuesday. At a House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee hearing into “international relations within the multilateral system,” former Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) employee Emma Reilly said in a written statement that “Beijing paid bribes to the two successive Presidents of the [UN] General Assembly” during the two-year negotiation of the Sustainable Development Goals. Another way China exercises influence within the UN Secretariat is
Taiwan’s first drag queen to compete on the internationally acclaimed RuPaul’s Drag Race, Nymphia Wind (妮妃雅), was on Friday crowned the “Next Drag Superstar.” Dressed in a sparkling banana dress, Nymphia Wind swept onto the stage for the final, and stole the show. “Taiwan this is for you,” she said right after show host RuPaul announced her as the winner. “To those who feel like they don’t belong, just remember to live fearlessly and to live their truth,” she said on stage. One of the frontrunners for the past 15 episodes, the 28-year-old breezed through to the final after weeks of showcasing her unique