A car bomb exploded yesterday in central Iraq, killing five people, including four police officers on patrol, while gunmen killed an education official in Baghdad.
The car bomb in Khan Bani Saad also injured two police officers and three civilians.
In Baghdad, gunmen opened fire from a car, killing Hassib Zamil outside of the Education Ministry offices in the Sadr City neighborhood.
Late Friday, insurgents fired a rocket propelled grenade and shot at an armored vehicle used to transport US troops on a road leading to the dangerous airport highway.
Lawmakers held last-minute meetings on who would be the parliament speaker of the newly elected National Assembly. They remained deadlocked on which Sunni Arab candidate should take the job. Some have also called for naming Kurdish leader Jalal Talabani as Iraq's new president during Sunday's session, a step that would bring Iraq closer to forming a new government.
On Friday, cleric Ahmed Abdul Ghafour al-Samarrai of the influential Association of Muslim Scholars read an edict calling for Iraqis to join the new police and army forces. The edict, however, instructed enlistees to refrain from helping foreign troops against their own countrymen.
In the central city of Samarra, an explosion Friday blew away part of a wall on top of a minaret from a ninth century mosque.
Witnesses said two men climbed the 52-meters-tall minaret, then returned to the ground before the blast. The US military blamed insurgents. It was unclear why the minaret, one of Iraq's most recognized landmarks, was targeted. US troops have used it as a sniper position.
Friday, radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr called on his supporters to stage a protest in Baghdad on April 9 to mark the second anniversary of US troops entering the capital. Sheik Hassan al-Edhari, an official at al-Sadr's Baghdad office, said the protesters will demand that the new Iraqi government set a timetable for withdrawing foreign troops and for trying Saddam.
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, funeral home officials said. They were 62. The twins, listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins, died on April 7 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, obituaries posted by Leibensperger Funeral Homes of Hamburg said. The cause of death was not detailed. “When we were born, the doctors didn’t think we’d make 30, but we proved them wrong,” Lori said in an interview when they turned 50, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of
IN PURSUIT: Israel’s defense minister said the revenge attacks by Israeli settlers would make it difficult for security forces to find those responsible for the 14-year-old’s death Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday condemned the “heinous murder” of an Israeli teenager in the occupied West Bank as attacks on Palestinian villages intensified following news of his death. After Benjamin Achimeir, 14, was reported missing near Ramallah on Friday, hundreds of Jewish settlers backed by Israeli forces raided nearby Palestinian villages, torching vehicles and homes, leaving at least one villager dead and dozens wounded. The attacks escalated in several villages on Saturday after Achimeir’s body was found near the Malachi Hashalom outpost. Agence France-Presse correspondents saw smoke rising from burned houses and fields. Mayor Amin Abu Alyah, of the