Gunmen assassinated the governor of Baghdad province -- the highest ranking government official to be slain since May -- and six of his bodyguards yesterday, and a suicide tanker-truck bomber killed 10 people at an Interior Ministry commando headquarters in western Baghdad, the latest in a steady drumbeat of insurgent violence ahead of Jan. 30 elections.
Governor Ali al-Haidari's three-vehicle convoy was passing through Baghdad's northern neighborhood of Hurriyah when unidentified gunmen opened fire, said the chief of his security detail, who asked only to be identified as Major Mazen.
PHOTO: AFP
"Our convoy was moving in Hurriyah and they came from different directions and opened fire at us," Mazen said.
Al-Haidari, who was the target of another assassination attempt last year that killed two of his bodyguards, worked closely with the US-led multinational forces in Baghdad on rebuilding the capital.
He is the highest-ranking Iraqi official killed since the former president of the now defunct Governing Council, Abdel-Zahraa Othman, better known as Izzadine Saleem, was assassinated in May.
Al-Qaeda in Iraq, led by Iraq's most wanted terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, claimed responsibility for al-Haidari's assassination and the tanker-truck explosion, a statement posted on the Internet said.
"We tell every traitor and supporter of the Jews and Christians that this is your fate," said the statement on a Web site known for carrying militants' claims.
Also yesterday, a tanker truck packed with explosives detonated near an interior ministry commando headquarters in western Baghdad, killing 10 people and wounding about 60, the Interior Ministry said.
A suicide driver rammed the truck at an Iraqi police checkpoint near the headquarters, which is also near an entrance of the Green Zone, the heavily fortified area in the center of Baghdad that houses both the US embassy and Iraqi government offices. Eight Iraqi commandos and two civilians were killed, the interior ministry said in a statement.
Two US servicemen were also killed in Iraq yesterday. A roadside bomb attack killed one US 1st Infantry Division soldier and wounded another near Balad, 80km north of Baghdad. A US Marine assigned to the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force was also killed in action in western Iraq's restive Anbar province, which includes the former insurgent stronghold of Fallujah.
Later, a roadside bomb killed three Iraqi National Guardsmen and wounded two near Baqouba, 57km northeast of Baghdad, US military spokesman Neal O'Brien said.
In an interview published yesterday, al-Haidari said that infrastructure in Baghdad was improving as a result of cooperation between the governor's office and multinational forces.
However, he had not always sided with the Americans. In October, he demanded that the US leave the Green Zone.
Yesterday's attacks came a day after violence that saw three car bombs and a roadside attack, one near the prime minister's party headquarters in Baghdad and others targeting Iraqi troops and a US security-company convoy. At least 16 people were killed on Monday.
Britain's Foreign Office said yesterday that three Britons and an American were killed a day earlier in a bombing near the Green Zone.
Andrew Marshall, spokesman for US security firm Kroll Inc, said two British employees were killed in Baghdad on Monday when a suicide bomber attacked their vehicle. The blast also killed a third Briton and an American.
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
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
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
RSS