The body of the only American among four Christian peace activists kidnapped late last year was found near a west Baghdad railway line with gunshots to his head and chest, Iraqi police said yesterday.
Tom Fox, 54, from Clear Brook, Virginia, was the fifth American hostage killed in Iraq. There was no immediate word on his fellow hostages, a Briton and two Canadians.
The US command in Baghdad confirmed that Fox's body was picked up by US forces on Thursday evening.
An Iraqi police patrol was also at the scene, said Falah al-Mohammedawi, an official with the Interior Ministry, which oversees police. He said Fox was found with his hands tied and gunshot wounds to his head and chest. There were cuts on Fox's body and bruises on his head, he said.
The FBI verified that the body was that of Fox, and his family was notified, US State Department spokesman Noel Clay said in Washington.
Word of Fox's killing came as four people -- including an Iraqi journalist and a human rights activist -- died in drive-by shootings yesterday, police said.
Amjad Hamid, who was in charge of educational programs at Iraqiya state television, was killed with his driver in Khadra, a mostly Sunni neighborhood of Baghdad, the channel said.
Waad Jabar, who worked for an Iraqi rights group, was gunned down with his bodyguard in Hawija, 240km north of Baghdad, police said.
US and Iraqi forces, meanwhile, conducted a series of raids in Baghdad and north of the capital, arresting 20 suspected insurgents early yesterday.
Four suspects were detained at a west Baghdad mosque identified by the US military as a possible al-Qaeda in Iraq safe haven. Four others were captured at other sites in the same area, the US military said in a statement. The eight were suspected of kidnapping, manufacturing car bombs and financing and supporting terrorists, the statement said.
A dozen more suspects were captured in Tikrit, former president Saddam Hussein's ancestral hometown 130km north of Baghdad, the military said. They were believed to be part of an insurgent cell responsible for the killing of dozens of Narhwan-area residents after the Feb. 22 bombing of a revered Shiite shrine in Samarra that unleashed a torrent of sectarian killing.
Also see story:
Bush highlights Iraqi bomb menace
‘UNFRIENDLY’: Changing the nationality listing of Taiwanese residents to ‘China’ goes against EU foreign policy as well as democratic and human rights principles, MOFA said Taiwan yesterday called on Denmark to correct its designation of the nationality of Taiwanese residents as “China” or face retaliatory measures. The Danish government in 2024 changed the nationality of Taiwanese citizens on their residence permits from “Taiwan” to “China.” The decision goes against EU foreign policy and contravenes democratic and human rights principles, Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) spokesman Hsiao Kuang-wei (蕭光偉) said. Denmark should present a solution acceptable to Taiwan as soon as possible and correct the erroneous designation to preserve the longstanding friendship between the two nations, Hsiao said. The issue could damage Denmark’s image and business reputation in Taiwan,
Taiwan climbed to its highest position in global export rankings in more than three decades last year, buoyed by demand linked to artificial intelligence (AI) that lifted shipments of semiconductors and technology products, Ministry of Finance data released yesterday showed. Taiwan accounted for 2.4 percent of global exports last year, or about US$640 billion, ranking 12th worldwide, the data showed. That was up four places from a year earlier and marked the nation’s best ranking since 1994, the ministry said. Taiwan’s share of global exports rose by 0.5 percentage points from the previous year, the largest increase among major economies, reflecting the nation’s
The nation’s fastest supercomputer, Nano 4 (晶創26), is scheduled to be launched in the third quarter, and would be used to train large language models in finance and national defense sectors, the National Center for High-Performance Computing (NCHC) said. The supercomputer, which would operate at about 86.05 petaflops, is being tested at a new cloud computing center in the Southern Taiwan Science Park in Tainan. The exterior of the server cabinet features chip circuitry patterns overlaid with a map of Taiwan, highlighting the nation’s central position in the semiconductor industry. The center also houses Taiwania 2, Taiwania 3, Forerunner 1 and
FIRST TRIAL: Ko’s lawyers sought reduced bail and other concessions, as did other defendants, but the bail judge denied their requests, citing the severity of the sentences Former Taipei mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) was yesterday sentenced to 17 years in prison and had his civil rights suspended for six years over corruption, embezzlement and other charges. Taipei prosecutors in December last year asked the Taipei District Court for a combined 28-year, six-month sentence for the four cases against Ko, who founded the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP). The cases were linked to the Core Pacific City (京華城購物中心) redevelopment project and the mismanagement of political donations. Other defendants convicted on separate charges included Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Taipei City Councilor Angela Ying (應曉薇), who was handed a 15-year, six-month sentence; Core Pacific
RSS