Shiite Arab leader Ibrahim al-Jaafari was sworn in as prime minister as Iraq's first democratically elected government took office Tuesday.
One by one, al-Jaafari and members of his Cabinet walked up to a podium and pledged to defend Iraq and its people. But a number of ministries -- including the key defense and oil industries -- remained in temporary hands.
After months of wrangling, al-Jaafari negotiated a Cabinet that so far includes 15 Shiite Arab ministers, seven Kurds, four Sunnis and one Christian. Two of four deputy prime ministers were also sworn in, a Shiite and a Kurd.
The much-awaited swearing-in ceremony took place in the Green Zone, a fortified compound in Baghdad which houses all the country's key institutions.
The new interim government will take over from Iyad Allawi's US-appointed administration and will be tasked with drafting a permanent constitution for Iraq and organizing fresh elections before the end of the year.
Meanwhile, the US military reported that it had found the body of an airman who went missing when contact was lost with two US jets overflying Iraq overnight.
NBC News, citing US navy officials, said earlier that the jets had been involved in a mid-air collision. Much of Iraq was engulfed in a fierce sandstorm late Monday and overnight.
Searching continued for the other crew member.
The military also announced the death of one of its troops in a bomb attack near Baghdad airport on Monday, as the death toll from a week of bloodshed continued to mount.
Insurgents have stepped up their attacks since Jaafari announced the partial Cabinet line-up on April 28, killing close to 150 people in five days, most of them Iraqi civilians.
A senior water ministry official was gunned down in southern Baghdad in broad daylight yesterday, while three policemen were killed in separate attacks north of the capital, security sources said.
US and Iraqi forces have cracked down on suspected insurgents in response to the fresh surge in attacks. Some 100 were captured in the Baghdad area on Monday.
The US military also announced yesterday that it had killed 12 insurgents with links to al-Qaeda's Iraq frontman, the Jordanian Islamic militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, near the Syrian border.
A six-year-old child was wounded in the operation, which involved air strikes, it said.
The violence dashed hopes that the announcement of a new Iraqi government, following general elections held on Jan. 30, would undermine the insurgency.
The polls were the first since former president Saddam Hussein was toppled two years ago but the deposed dictator's Sunni Arab minority community was kept away from polling stations by boycott calls and security threats.
The Sunni Arabs had received promises from the winning Shiite alliance of key posts in the government to counterbalance their under-representation in parliament.
But after Jaafari unveiled his partial line-up, Sunni leaders complained of tokenism and even threatened to quit the government altogether.
After a last-minute deal, Sunnis were to be handed the defence ministry along with at least five other portfolios and a post of deputy premier, a Sunni MP said.
PRECISION STRIKES: The most significant reason to deploy HIMARS to outlying islands is to establish a ‘dead zone’ that the PLA would not dare enter, a source said A High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) would be deployed to Penghu County and Dongyin Island (東引) in Lienchiang County (Matsu) to force the Chinese military to retreat at least 100km from the coastline, a military source said yesterday. Taiwan has been procuring HIMARS and Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS) from the US in batches. Once all batches have been delivered, Taiwan would possess 111 HIMARS units and 504 ATACMS, which have a range of 300km. Considering that “offense is the best defense,” the military plans to forward-deploy the systems to outlying islands such as Penghu and Dongyin so that
WHAT WAS ALL THAT FOR? Jaw Shaw-kong said that Cheng Li-wen had pushed for more drastic cuts and attacked him, just for the outcome to be nearly identical to his bill The legislature yesterday passed a supplementary budget bill to fund the purchase of separate packages of US military equipment, with the combined amount of spending capped at NT$780 billion (US$24.8 billion). The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) used their legislative majority to pass the bill, which runs until 2033 and has two main funding provisions. One was for NT$300 billion of arms sales already approved by the US for Taiwan on Dec. 17 last year, the other was for NT$480 billion for another arms package expected to be announced by Washington. The bill, which fell short of the NT$1.25
‘CLEAR MESSAGE’: The bill would set up an interagency ‘tiger team’ to review sanctions tools and other economic options to help deter any Chinese aggression toward Taiwan US Representative Young Kim has introduced a bill to deter Chinese aggression against Taiwan, calling for an interagency “tiger team” to preplan coordinated sanctions and economic measures in response to possible Chinese military or political action against Taiwan. “[Chinese President] Xi Jinping [習近平] has directed the People’s Liberation Army to be ready to invade Taiwan by 2027. China has a plan. America should have one too,” Kim said in a news release on Thursday last week. She introduced the “Deter PRC [People’s Republic of China] aggression against Taiwan act” to “ensure the US has a coordinated sanctions strategy ready should
A former television news host and six military personnel — active and retired — have been indicted on espionage charges, Kaohsiung prosecutors said yesterday. Lin Chen-you (林宸佑), a former CTi News host and YouTuber, last year allegedly made videos at the direction of a Chinese agent criticizing the Democratic Progressive Party’s recall campaign, the Ciaotou District Prosecutors’ Office told a news conference in Kaohsiung. He allegedly received 4,325 tether coins for the videos from an unidentified person surnamed Huang (黃), believed to be an agent of a hostile foreign power, they said. Lin, also known as Ma Te (馬德), has a show named
RSS