Four Iraqis, including two alleged members of a gang, were killed yesterday in different incidents, while insurgents again targeted a gas pipeline near the northern oil city of Kirkuk.
There was no word on the fate of two Bulgarian truck drivers and a Filipino truck driver kidnapped by insurgents earlier in the week and threatened with beheading. The deadline set by the insurgents was yesterday.
Officials in the Philippines said the country's small peacekeeping contingent in Iraq will be withdrawn when its current stint ends Aug. 20.
PHOTO: REUTERS
The withdrawal announcement appeared to be deliberately ambiguous, representing the fine line that the Philippines is walking to obtain its hostage's release while remaining one of Washington's closest supporters of the global war on terrorism.
In the ethnic tinderbox of Kirkuk, unknown assailants opened fire at about 9:00am at the offices of the predominantly Arab Union of Farming Cooperatives killing a guard, according to Iraqi police Major Burhan Taib. A movie theater, owned by a Turkmen businessman, was burnt to the ground in an attack by unknown individuals at about 4am, said police Colonel Adel Ibrahim.
Kirkuk has seen tension and violence among it's Arab, Kurd, Turkmen and Christian population.
A pipeline connecting the city's gas fields with the Beiji power plants to the west was attacked with an improvised explosive device at about 6:30am, setting a section of less than a meter on fire, according to Ahmed al-Hassan, head of security at the Northern Gas Co. He said the pipeline was shut as the fire was being put out.
The attack comes five days after another pipeline in the gas network connecting power plants and a gas canister factory north of Baghdad was sabotaged.
Meanwhile, in the Sunni-stronghold of Ramadi, west of Baghdad, US Marines said they shot dead two memebers of an armed gang who attacked them yesterday, while a hospital official reported that five Iraqis had been wounded.
"There was a clash at approximately 6:15am today near a taxi stop in Ramadi between US Marines and approximately seven enemy fighters dressed in black," said a Marine spokesman.
"Those seven fired on the Marines from the taxi stop. The Marines returned fire, killing two of the attackers and seized the vehicle they used, which had a machine gun mounted on the back," he said.
Meanwhile, two young brothers killed in a mortar attack in central Baghdad late Friday were mourned by their family. The parents of Rami, four, and Sami Saad, six, sobbed and screamed as the boys' wooden coffins were laid out at the Holy Family Chaldean church in the Karrada neighborhood. Tearful children held up photographs of the boys, who were playing in front of their home when mortar rounds struck the nearby Sadeer Hotel.
In Manila, a spokesman for President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo announced with pullout of the 51-strong contingent in Iraq.
"Our humanitarian contingent is scheduled to return on Aug. 20," spokesman Ignacio Bunye said. "Our future actions shall be guided by the UN Security Council decision as embodied in Resolution 1546, which defines the role of the UN and its member states in the future of Iraq."
Resolution 1546 specifies that Iraq can request "the continued presence of the multinational force and setting out its tasks."
The decision was announced just moments before Arab television station al Jazeera showed a video of Angelo dela Cruz appealing to President Arroyo to give in to his captors' demand.
While the withdrawal is a blow for the international coalition in Iraq, it affects only 51 peacekeepers and made no mention of any further action on the 4,000 or so Filipino contract workers there who are much more crucial to Washington and would be difficult to replace.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not