Shiite militiamen and Iraqi authorities fought for control of the police headquarters in the holy city of Najaf yesterday in the first skirmishes since a recent agreement to end weeks of bloody clashes. Four Iraqis were killed and 13 were injured, hospital and militia officials said.
Gunmen loyal to radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr attacked the station near the city's Revolution of 1920 Square after authorities tried to arrest suspected thieves, police and witnesses said. Al-Sadr's spokesman, Qais al-Khazali, said the police shot first and that militia leaders are trying to persuade fighters to lay down their weapons.
Al-Khazali said that two of al-Sadr's followers were killed and several were injured.
PHOTO: AP
US troops were not involved, police said. However, al-Sadr's militia see the Iraqi police as being collaborators with US forces.
The fighting comes only days after al-Sadr agreed to send his fighters home and pull back from the Islamic shrines in Najaf and its twin city of Kufa, handing over security to Iraqi police. The US Army also agreed to stay away from the holy sites to give Iraqi security forces a chance to end the standoff.
In northern Iraq, saboteurs blew up a key oil pipeline earlier Wednesday, forcing a 10 percent cut on the national power grid as demand for electricity rises with Iraq's broiling summer heat.
The pipeline blast near Beiji, 250km north of Baghdad, was the latest in a series of attacks by insurgents against infrastructure targets, possibly to shake public confidence as a new Iraqi government prepares to take power June 30.
As world leaders applauded their newfound unity in passing a UN Security Council resolution on Iraqi sovereignty, Iraq's Kurdish leaders protested that the US and Britain refused to include an endorsement of the interim constitution in the UN resolution. The Kurdish leaders expressed fears they would be sidelined politically by the Shiite Arab majority.
UN diplomats said the decision was made to keep a reference to the interim constitution -- the Transitional Administrative Law -- out of the resolution to appease Iraq's most influential Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Husseini al-Sistani, who grudgingly accepted the charter when it was approved in March.
Barham Salih, 44, of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) and a US favorite, announced Wednesday he would not accept the post of deputy prime minister for national security unless the powers were spelled out "appropriate to the position, sacrifice and important role of the Kurdish people," the PUK's KurdSat television reported.
US and other multinational forces will remain in Iraq after the new government takes power at the end of the month under terms of the UN resolution.
Prime Minister Iyad Allawi described the vote as a victory for Iraq because it declares an end to the military presence when a constitutionally elected government takes power in 2006 -- or before, if the Iraqi government requests it.
"The resolution is very clear that once Iraq stands on its feet, then we would ask the multinational forces to leave Iraq," Allawi said.
"This is ... an entirely a government issue," Allawi said.
At the Group of Eight summit in the US, French President Jacques Chirac raised objections to US President George W. Bush's proposal for a wider but unspecified role for NATO in post-occupation Iraq.
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, funeral home officials said. They were 62. The twins, listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins, died on April 7 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, obituaries posted by Leibensperger Funeral Homes of Hamburg said. The cause of death was not detailed. “When we were born, the doctors didn’t think we’d make 30, but we proved them wrong,” Lori said in an interview when they turned 50, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of
A prominent Christian leader has allegedly been stabbed at the altar during a Mass yesterday in southwest Sydney. Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel was saying Mass at Christ The Good Shepherd Church in Wakeley just after 7pm when a man approached him at the altar and allegedly stabbed toward his head multiple times. A live stream of the Mass shows the congregation swarm forward toward Emmanuel before it was cut off. The church leader gained prominence during the COVID-19 pandemic, amassing a large online following, Officers attached to Fairfield City police area command attended a location on Welcome Street, Wakeley following reports a number