A suicide bomber killed 22 people in Hilla yesterday by offering poor Shiite workers day-labor jobs and then detonating explosives packed inside his minibus as the crowd gathered around it.
In Baghdad, three almost simultaneous explosions, at least two of them car bombs, killed at least 10 people and wounded 45 at a bus station in the mainly Shiite eastern part of the city.
A security source said the three car bombs were set off within minutes of each other at the bus station in Al-Mashtal neighborhood.
A spokesman for police in the mainly Shiite city of Hilla, 100km south of the capital, said 49 people were wounded in the early morning blast there, when shrapnel tore through the expectant crowd as laborers jostled to come closer.
The tactic has been used before by al-Qaeda-linked Sunni militants at locations where men congregate in the hope of casual work.
"I was standing with other laborers when the minibus came and the driver asked for laborers. Everybody ran towards him and then he detonated his vehicle," Ali Mohammed said as he lay in a local hospital, his left thigh bandaged.
His life was probably saved by the fact that he was slow in reaching the vehicle and was standing at the back of the crowd.
"I saw the fire and collapsed on the ground," he said.
Many of the wounded were standing well away from the blast.
"We are poor people. We've done nothing wrong," Saja Kadhem, who owns a shop near the blast site, said as doctors bandaged a shrapnel wound to his head.
"I saw the laborers crowding around and then the vehicle blew up," he said.
Yesterday's blast followed the killing of a prominent Shiite Islamist politician on Saturday in what looked like a sectarian assassination. Ali al-Adhadh of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq was shot dead with his wife as he drove in mainly Sunni west Baghdad.
Meanwhile, Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem was due in Baghdad yesterday for a two-day trip and talks with Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki.
Earlier this month Muallem said Damascus was ready to engage in a "dialogue" with the US in a bid to achieve stability in Iraq and the region.
"We support the political process in Iraq and the Iraqi government and we are against a single drop of Iraqi blood being shed," he said after a meeting of Arab foreign ministers in Cairo.
also see story:
US military trial developments mystify academics
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