Pitched battles between US troops and Iraqi insurgents in strife-torn Mosul left at least 26 dead, including one US soldier, as two Lebanese businessmen were kidnapped in Baghdad overnight.
The fresh violence came after 30 people were killed when a Baghdad house rigged with explosives blew up during a police raid.
PHOTO: AFP
Despite the volatile security situation, US President George W. Bush insisted Iraq's landmark national elections must go ahead, while a hardline Islamist militant group reiterated its intention to cause bloodshed on polling day, Jan. 30.
In the northern city of Mosul, insurgents detonated car bombs against a US patrol and a combat outpost and about 50 fighters launched an assault on the outpost, firing small arms, rocket-propelled grenades and mortars, the military said.
US forces called in air strikes and at least 25 insurgents were killed, said Lieutenant Colonel Paul Hastings.
A military statement yesterday said a US soldier died of wounds suffered in one of the car bombings.
Masked gunmen were seen running down Mosul's deserted streets, firing off guns and rocket-propelled grenades, as a column of smoke shot up into the sky.
Violence has paralyzed the city of 1.5 million, where US forces are expected to increase their numbers ahead of the elections for an Iraqi national parliament.
As the clock ticked down to the election, doubts loom over whether US and Iraqi forces can pacify cities like Mosul, a bastion of the Sunni Muslim minority whose alienation from the US-backed political order is fueling the lethal insurgency.
The Iraqi government said it had captured a militant in Mosul linked to al-Qaeda operative Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who has a US$25 million price on his head.
The government identified the fighter as Abu Marwan, 33, a senior commander with Mosul-based Abu Talha groups, which the government said was linked to the Jordanian-born Zarqawi.
The deaths raised to almost 100 the number of people killed in Iraq in 48 hours as insurgents carried out a series of brazen attacks on Tuesday on police stations and checkpoints in the Sunni Muslim heartland north of Baghdad.
Apparently lured into a trap, police raided a home in Baghdad's squalid western Ghazaliya district late on Tuesday, and were still inside when a massive blast leveled the house, an official said.
Thirty people died, six of them police, the ministry said. Another 25 were wounded, including four policemen, and four police were listed as missing.
The attack resembled those in Fallujah during last month's US-led offensive on the city, where rebels rigged homes to blow up on ground troops.
Two Lebanese businessmen were kidnapped by masked gunmen from their home in Baghdad's upscale Mansur neighborhood, the scene of previous abductions, police said yesterday.
About 30 Lebanese working for private companies in Iraq have been kidnapped and later freed. However, in September, one was killed by his captors and three others killed during an attempted kidnap.
In other unrest, an Iraqi businessman, a female engineer working for the US military and a Turkish truck driver were killed in separate attacks to the north of Baghdad, police said.
And Iraqi authorities said they had arrested 59 people, including an Egyptian, suspected of involvement in violence after raids by the Iraqi National Guard in Baghdad and its regions.
Drug lord Jose Adolfo Macias Villamar, alias “Fito,” was Ecuador’s most-wanted fugitive before his arrest on Wednesday, more than a year after he escaped prison from where he commanded the country’s leading criminal gang. The former taxi driver turned crime boss became the prime target of law enforcement early last year after escaping from a prison in the southwestern port of Guayaquil. Ecuadoran President Daniel Noboa’s government released “wanted” posters with images of his face and offered US$1 million for information leading to his capture. In a country plagued by crime, members of Fito’s gang, Los Choneros, have responded with violence, using car
Canada and the EU on Monday signed a defense and security pact as the transatlantic partners seek to better confront Russia, with worries over Washington’s reliability under US President Donald Trump. The deal was announced after a summit in Brussels between Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President Antonio Costa. “While NATO remains the cornerstone of our collective defense, this partnership will allow us to strengthen our preparedness ... to invest more and to invest smarter,” Costa told a news conference. “It opens new opportunities for companies on both sides of the
OVERHAUL: The move would likely mark the end to Voice of America, which was founded in 1942 to counter Nazi propaganda and operated in nearly 50 languages The parent agency of Voice of America (VOA) on Friday said it had issued termination notices to more than 639 more staff, completing an 85 percent decrease in personnel since March and effectively spelling the end of a broadcasting network founded to counter Nazi propaganda. US Agency for Global Media (USAGM) senior advisor Kari Lake said the staff reduction meant 1,400 positions had been eliminated as part of US President Donald Trump’s agenda to cut staffing at the agency to a statutory minimum. “Reduction in Force Termination Notices were sent to 639 employees at USAGM and Voice of America, part of a
The team behind the long-awaited Vera Rubin Observatory in Chile yesterday published their first images, revealing breathtaking views of star-forming regions as well as distant galaxies. More than two decades in the making, the giant US-funded telescope sits perched at the summit of Cerro Pachon in central Chile, where dark skies and dry air provide ideal conditions for observing the cosmos. One of the debut images is a composite of 678 exposures taken over just seven hours, capturing the Trifid Nebula and the Lagoon Nebula — both several thousand light-years from Earth — glowing in vivid pinks against orange-red backdrops. The new image
RSS