Two suicide car bombers struck within a minute of each other and just a kilometer apart in south Baghdad shortly before noon yesterday, killing at least seven policemen and raising the day's bombing death toll in the capital to at least 31, police said.
Earlier yesterday, the day's first suicide car bombing killed sixteen policemen and five civilians in the same neighborhood, signaling a new round of bomb violence one day after residents suffered Baghdad's bloodiest day of the war.
Three civilians were killed when a roadside bomb struck a Ministry of Industry bus in eastern Baghdad. Thirteen were injured in the attack, said police Lieutenant Colonel Ahmed Abbod.
PHOTO: AP
The US military and Iraqi police drove through Baghdad's Dora neighborhood, where the bombings were concentrated yesterday, warning residents to stay indoors because five more car bombers were said to be ready to attack, police Captain Ali Abdul Hamza said. Streets in the southern neighborhood were abandoned.
Al-Qaeda in Iraq said it launched the Wednesday attacks. There was no immediate claim for yesterday's bombings.
Al-Qaeda's leader in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, purportedly declared "all-out war" on Shiites, Iraqi troops and the government in an audiotape posted Wednesday on an Internet site known for carrying extremist Islamic content.
US forces and insurgents, meanwhile, reportedly clashed in the troubled western town of Ramadi, a militant stronghold on the main road to neighboring Jordan. A Web posting purportedly from al-Qaeda in Iraq said its forces had engaged the US military in the predominantly Sunni city of about 800,000.
On Wednesday, more than a dozen coordinated bombings ripped through Baghdad, killing 160 people and wounding 570. Many of the victims were day laborers lured by a suicide attacker posing as an employer.
In claiming it carried out the Wednesday attacks, al-Qaeda said it was taking retaliation for the rout of militants from their base in Tal Afar, the northern city near Syria.
The Thursday attacks in the capital began at 8am. Four hours later the twin bombing boomed out across Baghdad.
"There was just one minute and one kilometer between the two car bombs," said police Captain Firas Gaiti said. He said at least seven policemen died and 10 were wounded.
In the ethnically mixed city of Kirkuk, 290km north of Baghdad, insurgents detonated a roadside bomb next to a passing patrol, killing two police officers and wounding four, said Colonel Anwar Hassan.
CHIPMAKING INVESTMENT: J.W. Kuo told legislators that Department of Investment Review approval would be needed were Washington to seek a TSMC board seat Minister of Economic Affairs J.W. Kuo (郭智輝) yesterday said he received information about a possible US government investment in Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) and an assessment of the possible effect on the firm requires further discussion. If the US were to invest in TSMC, the plan would need to be reviewed by the Department of Investment Review, Kuo told reporters ahead of a hearing of the legislature’s Economics Committee. Kuo’s remarks came after US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick on Tuesday said that the US government is looking into the federal government taking equity stakes in computer chip manufacturers that
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers have declared they survived recall votes to remove them from office today, although official results are still pending as the vote counting continues. Although final tallies from the Central Election Commission (CEC) are still pending, preliminary results indicate that the recall campaigns against all seven KMT lawmakers have fallen short. As of 6:10 pm, Taichung Legislators Yen Kuan-heng (顏寬恒) and Yang Chiung-ying (楊瓊瓔), Hsinchu County Legislator Lin Szu-ming (林思銘), Nantou County Legislator Ma Wen-chun (馬文君) and New Taipei City Legislator Lo Ming-tsai (羅明才) had all announced they
POWER PLANT POLL: The TPP said the number of ‘yes’ votes showed that the energy policy should be corrected, and the KMT said the result was a win for the people’s voice The government does not rule out advanced nuclear energy generation if it meets the government’s three prerequisites, President William Lai (賴清德) said last night after the number of votes in favor of restarting a nuclear power plant outnumbered the “no” votes in a referendum yesterday. The referendum failed to pass, despite getting more “yes” votes, as the Referendum Act (公民投票法) states that the vote would only pass if the votes in favor account for more than one-fourth of the total number of eligible voters and outnumber the opposing votes. Yesterday’s referendum question was: “Do you agree that the Ma-anshan Nuclear Power Plant
Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) yesterday visited Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), as the chipmaker prepares for volume production of Nvidia’s next-generation artificial intelligence (AI) chips. It was Huang’s third trip to Taiwan this year, indicating that Nvidia’s supply chain is deeply connected to Taiwan. Its partners also include packager Siliconware Precision Industries Co (矽品精密) and server makers Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) and Quanta Computer Inc (廣達). “My main purpose is to visit TSMC,” Huang said yesterday. “As you know, we have next-generation architecture called Rubin. Rubin is very advanced. We have now taped out six brand new
RSS