Rebels mounted attacks to scare people away from the polls in Iraq's landmark Jan. 30 elections as a two-day deadline for the execution of eight Chinese nationals was due to expire yesterday.
A Brazilian national was reported missing after an ambush north of Baghdad by rebels who killed a Briton and his Iraqi colleague.
PHOTO: AFP
Insurgents intensified their intimidation campaign as the Al-Qaeda linked Army of Ansar al-Sunna released footage purporting to show the execution of two Iraqis working for a US company on preparations for the vote.
The latest gruesome displays followed a seven-car bomb rampage around the country on Wednesday that claimed the lives of 20 people and targeted the country's army and police, who have lost more than 1,300 men to insurgent attacks.
Rebels are betting a wave of bloodshed will discredit the coun-try's first free elections in half a century and the first since the downfall of former president Saddam Hussein's regime in April 2003.
Meanwhile, China was counting on an association of Muslim clerics, with reputed links to the insur-gency, to save their eight nationals held hostage, as the deadline for their execution neared.
Diplomats from China's embassy in Baghdad were in talks with the Committee of Muslim Scholars and its chairman Harith Al-Dhari, who helped in the release of seven Chinese taken hostage last April, the Xinhua news agency said.
"All of the Iraqi people know the attitude of the Chinese people toward the Iraqi issue, and I am optimistic that the kidnapped Chinese will be released soon," the chairman said in Baghdad.
"As long as the kidnappers claim themselves to be an Islamic party, I feel that the lives of the kidnapped are not in danger," he said.
Dhari's organization issued a statement "calling on all the kidnapping powers to release all those held hostage in Iraq" to mark the Muslim feast of Eid al-Adhha.
Kidnappers released footage on Tuesday to the Arabic news channel al-Jazeera of the eight hostages holding Chinese passports and standing against a mud brick wall flanked by two masked gunmen.
They were seized last week as they made their way to Jordan.
The US military confirmed a Brazilian national went missing during a rebel ambush that killed a Briton and his Iraqi colleague.
The statement came after British firm Janusian Security Risk Man-agement announced that a Briton and an Iraqi employee were shot dead on Wednesday near Baiji, and that a third foreigner went missing.
Playing on the fear factor ahead of elections, the Army of Ansar al-Sunna posted video footage on its Web site on Wednesday, showing two men it claimed were setting up Internet systems for the vote being shot in the head.
The chairman of Iraq's Independent Electoral Commission, Abdul Hussein Hendawi, however, said that he had no information about the executions.
MONEY MATTERS: Xi was to highlight projects such as a new high-speed railway between Belgrade and Budapest, as Serbia is entirely open to Chinese trade and investment Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic yesterday said that “Taiwan is China” as he made a speech welcoming Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to Belgrade, state broadcaster Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) said. “We have a clear and simple position regarding Chinese territorial integrity,” he told a crowd outside the government offices while Xi applauded him. “Yes, Taiwan is China.” Xi landed in Belgrade on Tuesday night on the second leg of his European tour, and was greeted by Vucic and most government ministers. Xi had just completed a two-day trip to France, where he held talks with French President Emmanuel Macron as the
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
CUSTOMS DUTIES: France’s cognac industry was closely watching the talks, fearing that an anti-dumping investigation opened by China is retaliation for trade tensions French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at one of his beloved childhood haunts in the Pyrenees, seeking to press a message to Beijing not to support Russia’s war against Ukraine and to accept fairer trade. The first day of Xi’s state visit to France, his first to Europe since 2019, saw respectful, but sometimes robust exchanges between the two men during a succession of talks on Monday. Macron, joined initially by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, urged Xi not to allow the export of any technology that could be used by Russia in its invasion