Gunmen killed 47 civilians near Baghdad and militia fighting broke out south of the capital yesterday in a wave of violence triggered by the bombing of a Shiite shrine and reprisal attacks against Sunni mosques. All leave for Iraqi soldiers and police was canceled and personnel ordered to report to their units.
Sunni Arabs also suspended their participation in talks on a new government.
Sixteen other people, eight of them civilians, died in a bombing yesterday in the center of Baqubah, while three journalists working for al-Arabiya television were found dead in Samarra.
As the country veered ominously toward sectarian war, the government extended the curfew in Baghdad and Salaheddin Province for two days in the wake of Wednesday's attack on the Askariya shrine in Samarra.
Radical Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr accused the Iraqi government and US forces of failing to protect the Samarra shrine, also known as the Golden Mosque, and ordered his militia to defend Shiite holy sites across Iraq.
"If the government had real sovereignty, then nothing like this would have happened," al-Sadr said a statement. "Brothers in the Mahdi Army must protect all Shiite shrines and mosques, especially in Samarra."
The destruction of the gleaming dome of the 1,200-year-old shrine sent crowds of angry Shiites into the streets. Thousands of demonstrators carrying Shiite flags and banners marched through parts of Baghdad, Karbala, Kut, Tal Afar and Najaf in protest against the shrine attack.
The hardline Sunni clerical Association of Muslim Scholars said 168 Sunni mosques were attacked, 10 imams killed and 15 abducted. The figures could not be independently confirmed.
Association spokesman Abdul-Salam al-Kubaisi blamed the country's top Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, and other Shiite religious leaders for calling demonstrations against the shrine attack.
"They are all fully aware that the Iraqi borders are open, and the streets are penetrated with those who want to create strife among Iraqis," al-Kubaisi said at a news briefing.
Forty-seven bodies were found in a ditch in Diyala, a province northeast of Baghdad. Officials said the victims appeared to have been stopped by gunmen, forced out of their cars and shot near Nahrawan, about 20km south of Baqubah. Most were aged between 20 and 50 and appeared to include both Sunnis and Shiites, police said.
The bullet-riddled bodies of a prominent al-Arabiya TV female correspondent and two other Iraqi journalists, who had been covering Wednesday's explosion in Samarra, were found on the outskirts of the mostly Sunni Arab city 95km north of Baghdad.
Fighting broke out yesterday afternoon in Mahmoudiya south of Baghdad between militiamen from al-Sadr's Mahdi Army militia and Sunni gunmen. Two civilians were killed and five militiamen were injured, police Captain Rashid al-Samaraie said.
The eight Iraqi soldiers and eight civilians were killed when a soup vendor's cart packed with explosives detonated as a patrol passed in the center of Baqubah, 55km northeast of Baghdad, police Major Falah al-Mohammedawi said.
At least 20 people were injured in the blast.
President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, summoned political leaders to a meeting yesterday. But the biggest Sunni faction in the new parliament, the Iraqi Accordance Front, refused to attend, citing the attacks on Sunni mosques.
"We want a clear condemnation from the government which didn't do enough yesterday to curb those angry mobs," said Salman al-Jumaili, a member of the Front. "There was even a kind of cooperation with the government security forces in some places in attacking the Sunni mosques."
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