With car bombs, assassinations, ambushes and raids on police stations, insurgents killed at least 54 people on Tuesday, including Iraqi policemen and a deputy governor, in the Iraqi capital and across the volatile Sunni Triangle, and a militant group claimed it executed eight Iraqi employees of an American security company.
The string of attacks -- including one in which 12 policemen's throats were slit in their station -- were the latest by the insurgency targeting Iraqis working with the American military or the US-backed government ahead of the Jan. 30 national elections.
Late on Tuesday, insurgents lured police to a house in west Baghdad with an anonymous tip about a rebel hideout, then set off explosives, killing at least 29 people and wounding 18, according to police. Seven policemen were among the dead.
The explosion erupted from inside the house as police were about to enter, an official in Ghazaliya police station said yesterday. Six houses collapsed in the blast and several people are believed to be still trapped underneath the rubble.
The police official said the attack was "evidently an ambush" and "massive amounts of explosives" were used.
Brigadier General Jeffery Hammond, assistant brigade commander in the 1st Cavalry Division that controls Baghdad, said attacks by insurgents are expected to escalate further in the run-up to the ballot.
"We anticipate that the enemy will [continue with] attacks, intimidation, assassinations and other messages designed to destroy life in Baghdad," Hammond said, adding that Iraqi security forces will bear the brunt of providing security for the elections and that US troops will back them up only if needed.
Iraqi leaders said the guerrillas -- who are mostly Sunni Muslims and have been blamed for attacks against Iraq's Shiites -- are bent on triggering ethnic strife before next month's poll.
"The terrorists intend to destroy Iraq's national unity," a statement issued by the Interim National Assembly said. "Their intentions are to harm this country which faces crucial challenges amid a very difficult period."
Shiite Muslims, who make up around 60 percent of Iraq's people, have been strong supporters of the elections, which they expect to reverse the longtime domination of Iraq's Sunni minority. The insurgency is believed to draw most of its support from Sunnis, who provided much of Saddam Hussein's former Baath Party membership.
Earlier on Tuesday, gunmen attacked a police station near Saddam's hometown of Tikrit, over-whelmed 12 Iraqi policemen there, slit their throats and then blew up the building, said Lieutenant Colonel Saad Hmoud, a local police official.
The deputy governor of the restive Anbar Province, Moayyad Hardan al-Issawi, was assassinated near Ramadi, east of Baghdad, police official Abdel Qader al-Kubeisy said.
Gunmen who shot him left a statement next to his body: "This is the fate of everyone who deals with the American troops." The statement was signed by the group Mujahidin al-Anbar, or "holy warriors of Anbar."
Such flagrant attacks appear designed to cause panic among Iraqi officials and security forces and to provoke a sectarian conflict between Shiites and Sunnis.
Militants released a videotape on Tuesday, saying they have executed eight and released two Iraqis who were employed by Sandi Group, a US security company, and had been held hostage since Dec. 13. The claim could not be independently verified.
The insurgents claiming to represent three Iraqi militant groups -- the Mujahidin Army, the Black Banner Brigade and the Mutassim Bellah Brigade -- said in the tape obtained by APTN that "the eight have been executed because it was proven that they were supporting the occupational army." The other two will be released for the lack of evidence, according to a statement read by one of the militants.
In other strikes on Tuesday, a car bomb killed five Iraqi National Guardsmen and injured 26 near Baqouba, 56km northeast of Baghdad, said US Major Neal O'Brien.
Former Nicaraguan president Violeta Chamorro, who brought peace to Nicaragua after years of war and was the first woman elected president in the Americas, died on Saturday at the age of 95, her family said. Chamorro, who ruled the poor Central American country from 1990 to 1997, “died in peace, surrounded by the affection and love of her children,” said a statement issued by her four children. As president, Chamorro ended a civil war that had raged for much of the 1980s as US-backed rebels known as the “Contras” fought the leftist Sandinista government. That conflict made Nicaragua one of
BOMBARDMENT: Moscow sent more than 440 drones and 32 missiles, Volodymyr Zelenskiy said, in ‘one of the most terrifying strikes’ on the capital in recent months A nighttime Russian missile and drone bombardment of Ukraine killed at least 15 people and injured 116 while they slept in their homes, local officials said yesterday, with the main barrage centering on the capital, Kyiv. Kyiv City Military Administration head Tymur Tkachenko said 14 people were killed and 99 were injured as explosions echoed across the city for hours during the night. The bombardment demolished a nine-story residential building, destroying dozens of apartments. Emergency workers were at the scene to rescue people from under the rubble. Russia flung more than 440 drones and 32 missiles at Ukraine, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy
COMPETITION: The US and Russia make up about 90 percent of the world stockpile and are adding new versions, while China’s nuclear force is steadily rising, SIPRI said Most of the world’s nuclear-armed states continued to modernize their arsenals last year, setting the stage for a new nuclear arms race, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) said yesterday. Nuclear powers including the US and Russia — which account for about 90 percent of the world’s stockpile — had spent time last year “upgrading existing weapons and adding newer versions,” researchers said. Since the end of the Cold War, old warheads have generally been dismantled quicker than new ones have been deployed, resulting in a decrease in the overall number of warheads. However, SIPRI said that the trend was likely
‘SHORTSIGHTED’: Using aid as leverage is punitive, would not be regarded well among Pacific Island nations and would further open the door for China, an academic said New Zealand has suspended millions of dollars in budget funding to the Cook Islands, it said yesterday, as the relationship between the two constitutionally linked countries continues to deteriorate amid the island group’s deepening ties with China. A spokesperson for New Zealand Minister of Foreign Affairs Winston Peters said in a statement that New Zealand early this month decided to suspend payment of NZ$18.2 million (US$11 million) in core sector support funding for this year and next year as it “relies on a high trust bilateral relationship.” New Zealand and Australia have become increasingly cautious about China’s growing presence in the Pacific
RSS