A suicide bomber detonated an explosives-laden vehicle near the restive central city of Ramadi, killing 11 Iraqi police commandos and injuring 14 other people including two US Army soldiers, the US military said yesterday.
The Thursday evening blast at a checkpoint on the eastern outskirts of Ramadi also wounded nine Iraqi security-force members and three civilians, bringing the list of victims to 25, US Marine Captain Jeffrey Pool told reporters.
The attacker also died in the explosion near the flashpoint Sunni Triangle city of Ramadi, 115km west of Baghdad.
PHOTO: AFP
In an eastern Baghdad neighborhood, unidentified attackers killed five female translators working for the US military late Thursday, said police Captain Ahmed Aboud.
The translators "were heading home when gunmen driving two cars sprayed them with machine-gun fire," said Aboud yesterday. Further details weren't immediately available.
Insurgents routinely target US forces and their perceived collaborators as well as members of Iraq's government, army and police -- security forces the US military says must gain better control of the strife-torn country before any major US troop withdrawal.
On Thursday, hundreds of power workers shouting "No, no, to terror!" marched through Baghdad to protest attacks that have killed dozens of their colleagues, while demonstrators in the south demanded that the new petroleum minister be appointed from their oil-rich region.
The demonstrations came as negotiators for the two biggest factions in the new National Assembly worked out details of an Iraqi government that US officials hope will pave the way for the eventual withdrawal of coalition forces.
Jawad al-Maliki, a negotiator from the Shiite-led United Iraqi Alliance, said talks had progressed enough for Shiite Arab and ethnic Kurd officials to agree to hold parliament's second session early next week, although no date had been set.
The 275-seat National Assembly met March 16 to swear in its members.
"The negotiations were positive and very good," al-Maliki said. "In the coming days, the meetings will be continuous and decisive."
Lined up behind a black banner with the names of slain power workers, protesters demanded an end to attacks on electricity stations and oil pipelines -- targets in an insurgent effort to weaken the economy and undermine the US-led coalition and interim government.
At the same time, in southern Basra, more than 200 workers gathered outside a local government building to insist that the new government's oil and transportation ministers be someone from that region.
"Everyone must know that the oppressed and persecuted people of the south refuse to have their interests be ignored," protesters said in a statement given to the provincial governor, Mohammed al-Waeli.
Al-Waeli agreed, saying: "We are eager that the people of Basra and the south have clout in the new government."
Some oil workers threatened to disrupt production in the south.
"We will stop pumping the oil and go on strike for those working in the oil field and the ports if our demands aren't met," said Mohammed Abdul Hafez, a union official who was one of the demonstration's organizers.
Kurdish and Shiite negotiators debated Cabinet posts Thursday, and Abdul-Karim al-Anzi, a Shiite official, said lawmakers should be able to elect the president, two vice presidents and parliament's speaker in their session next week.
A ship that appears to be taking on the identity of a scrapped gas carrier exited the Strait of Hormuz on Friday, showing how strategies to get through the waterway are evolving as the Middle East war progresses. The vessel identifying as liquefied natural gas (LNG) carrier Jamal left the Strait on Friday morning, ship-tracking data show. However, the same tanker was also recorded as having beached at an Indian demolition yard in October last year, where it is being broken up, according to market participants and port agent’s reports. The ship claiming to be Jamal is likely a zombie vessel that
Japan is to downgrade its description of ties with China from “one of its most important” in an annual diplomatic report, according to a draft reviewed by Reuters, as relations with Beijing worsen. This year’s Diplomatic Bluebook, which Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s government is expected to approve next month, would instead describe China as an important neighbor and the relationship as “strategic” and “mutually beneficial.” The draft cites a series of confrontations with Beijing over the past year, including export controls on rare earths, radar lock-ons targeting Japanese military aircraft and increased pressure around Taiwan. The shift in tone underscores a deterioration
LAW CONSTRAINTS: The US has been pressing allies to send warships to open the Strait, but Tokyo’s military actions are limited under its postwar pacifist constitution Japan could consider deploying its military for minesweeping in the Strait of Hormuz if a ceasefire is reached in the war on Iran, Japanese Minister of Foreign Affairs Toshimitsu Motegi said yesterday. “If there were to be a complete ceasefire, hypothetically speaking, then things like minesweeping could come up,” Motegi said. “This is purely hypothetical, but if a ceasefire were established and naval mines were creating an obstacle, then I think that would be something to consider.” Japan’s military actions are limited under its postwar pacifist constitution, but 2015 security legislation allows Tokyo to use its Self-Defense Forces overseas if an attack,
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) yesterday faced a regional election battle in Rhineland-Palatinate, now held by the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD). Merz’s CDU has enjoyed a narrow poll lead over the SPD — their coalition partners at the national level — who have ruled the mid-sized state for 35 years. Polling third is the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), which spells a greater threat to the two centrist parties in several state elections in September in the country’s ex-communist east. The picturesque state of Rhineland-Palatinate, bordering France, Belgium and Luxembourg and with a population of about 4 million,
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