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.
A Chinese artificial intelligence (AI) cybersecurity tool called ARTEX was used in a spate of recent hacks of Japanese companies, the subsidiary of a major Tokyo-based Internet company yesterday. Dozens of Japanese companies, from restaurant chains to a car hire operator, have disclosed unauthorized access or data breaches in the past weeks — potentially impacting millions of customers. The information security arm of GMO Internet Group Inc said it had “confirmed ARTEX was used” having investigated the attacks in collaboration with external organizations. “It also became clear ... the attacks were almost exclusively targeting Japan,” GMO cybersecurity center director Daiki
China’s first fully artificial intelligence (AI)-generated feature film opened in cinemas yesterday in what promised to be a tough box-office test for the country’s booming tech industry as advance ticket sales lag. More than 10,000 screenings of the sci-fi thriller Sanxingdui: Future Past were scheduled yesterday, according to ticketing platform Maoyan. However, public reception has been less than enthusiastic. Presale revenue as of yesterday morning was 80,000 yuan (US$11,992), while total box-office takings were forecast to remain below 150,000 yuan, only a fraction of the reported production cost, Maoyan said. Ticket prices range from 20 to 90 yuan, bringing the number sold to a
A STEP UP: The moving of small military positions forward should be taken seriously amid the North’s recent demonstrations of its firepower, an analyst said North Korea has moved new units into “firing positions,” the sister of leader Kim Jong-un said yesterday, days after Pyongyang warned it was considering deploying additional strike means to its border with South Korea. Tensions between Seoul and Pyongyang have soared since the South last month blamed an explosion inside the heavily fortified demilitarized zone (DMZ) separating the two countries on landmines laid by North Korea, an accusation it has rejected. “Our military leadership underlined the need to make those rogues aware that our new firepower units have taken their firing positions,” state media cited Kim Yo-jong as saying. Her statement came a
Thousands of British and French troops have taken part in a military training exercise that included one of Britain’s largest airborne operations in two decades, the British government said yesterday. The war game is designed to show how NATO countries could be defended against a modern-day attack and comes during fears about Russian aggression in Europe amid Moscow’s war against Ukraine. About 2,500 troops were involved in the seven-week exercise, in which 600 British and French paratroopers dropped from four RAF A400M Atlas transport aircraft over Germany. The exercise called Rhino Titan, held at the Sennelager military training center in
RSS