Guerrilla bombings targeting US and Iraqi forces killed at least four people yesterday as insurgents appeared to rebound after a lull in violence.
A roadside bomb near the northern city of Samarra killed two Iraqi soldiers, an army source said.
Militants exploded three roadside bombs in Baghdad, killing at least one civilian and wounding eight others, officials said of the latest in a string of deadly attacks across the Iraqi capital.
One bomb exploded near a US convoy at 9:30am in the western Mansour district, witnesses said. One damaged Humvee could be scene in the area, which was sealed off by US forces.
At least five civilians were injured in the blast, said Ihssan Abdul Razaq, an official at the Yarmouk Hospital where rescue workers brought the wounded.
Another jerry-rigged device exploded in an eastern neighborhood where US forces were also on patrol, killing one civilian and wounding three others, said a police official, speaking on condition of anonymity.
A third blast didn't appear to cause any injuries, said Captain Talib Thamir. The US military confirmed the trio of attacks, but had no further information.
Pakistan yesterday urged kidnappers in Iraq to release a Pakistani embassy official who disappeared outside his Baghdad home, as Al-Jazeera satellite TV aired a video that claimed to show the man.
Al-Jazeera did not air audio of the tape, but said the man identified himself as Malik Mohammed Javed, who was abducted last Saturday as he left his home to attend prayers at a mosque.
"We again appeal to Javed's kidnappers to free him in the name of Islam," Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Amhed said yesterday.
"We appeal to them not to harm him because his aged parents and other family members have already suffered a lot," the minister said.
A US Marine died when an insurgent mortar round landed inside a military base in western Iraq, the military said yesterday.
The Marine, assigned to the 2nd Marine Division, 2nd Marine Expeditionary Force, died after a Wednesday attack at Camp Hit, in Anbar province, the military said.
A main Baghdad market went up in flames late Thursday, but officials said yesterday they didn't believe foul play was behind the inferno that engulfed the market.
"Preliminary investigations indicate that the fire was not caused by arson," Interior Ministry Captain Ahmed Ismael said. "More investigations are underway.
Reports of daily gunbattles and explosions had died down in the middle of last month, and the Iraqi and US governments declared the lull a sign that their fighters were winning the battle against the insurgency. But this month militants have stepped up assaults.
The bloodshed increased pressure on Iraqi leaders, who have been squabbling over the formation of a new government during a lull in attacks since the Jan. 30 polls. The key interior, oil and defense ministers have yet to be chosen.
Showcasing phallus-shaped portable shrines and pink penis candies, Japan’s annual fertility festival yesterday teemed with tourists, couples and families elated by its open display of sex. The spring Kanamara Matsuri near Tokyo features colorfully dressed worshipers carrying a trio of giant phallic-shaped objects as they parade through the street with glee. The festival, as legend has it, honors a local blacksmith in the Edo Period (1603-1868) who forged an iron dildo to break the teeth of a sharp-toothed demon inhabiting a woman’s vagina that had been castrating young men on their wedding nights. A 1m black steel phallus sits in the courtyard of
JAN. 1 CLAUSE: As military service is voluntary, applications for permission to stay abroad for over three months for men up to age 45 must, in principle, be granted A little-noticed clause in sweeping changes to Germany’s military service policy has triggered an uproar after it emerged that the law requires men aged up to 45 to get permission from the armed forces before any significant stay abroad, even in peacetime. The legislation, which went into effect on Jan. 1 aims to bolster the military and demands all 18-year-old men fill out a questionnaire to gauge their suitability to serve in the armed forces, but stops short of conscription. If the “modernized” model fails to pull in enough recruits, parliament will be compelled to discuss the reintroduction of compulsory service, German
For two decades, researchers observed members of the Ngogo chimpanzee group of Kibale National Park in Uganda spend their days eating fruits and leaves, resting, traveling and grooming in their tropical rainforest abode, but this stable community then fractured and descended into years of deadly violence. The researchers are now describing the first clearly documented example of a group of wild chimpanzees splitting into two separate factions, with one launching a series of coordinated attacks against the other. Adult males and infants were targeted, with 28 deaths. “Biting, pounding the victim with their hands, dragging them, kicking them — mostly adult males,
Filipino farmers like Romeo Wagayan have been left with little choice but to let their vegetables rot in the field rather than sell them at a loss, as rising oil prices linked to the Iran war drive up the cost of harvesting, labor and transport. “There’s nothing we can do,” said Wagayan, a 57-year old vegetable farmer in the northern Philippine province of Benguet. “If we harvest it, our losses only increase because of labor, transportation and packing costs. We don’t earn anything from it. That’s why we decided not to harvest at all,” he said. Soaring costs caused by the Middle East
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