A suicide car bomb exploded outside an Iraqi army recruitment center yesterday, killing two Iraqi soldiers and a civilian, and wounding 20 people, police said.
The blast occurred in the Azamiaya section of the capital about 18m from the front gate of the center, said police Colonel Rashid Ibrahim.
All the victims appeared to be Iraqis, another police official said.
One of the main goals of the US-led coalition in Iraq has been to train Iraqi security forces to replace US soldiers in the field, and insurgents often target centers where such security forces are being recruited and instructed.
Two other Iraqi civilians died in other attacks yesterday.
In Baghdad, masked men armed with machine guns and traveling in two cars in the capital shot and killed Professor Fuad Ibrahim Mohamed Al-Bayati as he left his home for work at the University of Baghdad. A roadside car bomb that exploded 48km south of the capital killed one man, police said.
In Baqubah a roadside bomb missed a US military convoy but wounded three nearby civilians, police said.
Late Monday night, gunmen ambushed a senior Defense Ministry adviser, Major General Adnan al-Qaraghulli, as he drove home in Baghdad, killing him and his son, the Interior Ministry said.
Elsewhere, Iraqi security forces began scaling back their search operation in Madain, a town south of Baghdad in Iraq's "Triangle of Death," where reports that Sunni militants had taken up to 100 Shiites hostage turned out to be false.
The reports had startled the entire nation, including the country's new National Assembly, raising fears that such a crisis could set off Sunni-Shiite fighting in Iraq.
In Baghdad, the assembly delayed its planned meeting yesterday morning to protest the alleged detention and beating of an Iraqi legislator by US forces at a checkpoint outside the heavily fortified Green Zone where parliament meets.
The alleged beating occurred when Fattah al-Sheik, whose small party has been linked to radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, showed his identity card at the checkpoint and was asked to get out of his car, said legislator Tourkit al-Ta'i.
US forces said they had heard of the incident and were investigating it.
The search of Madain by hundreds Iraqi security forces was launched Monday to root out Sunni insurgents in Madain. They found weapons and car bombs but no hostages.
Yesterday, shops began to reopen in the agricultural town of about 1,000 families, far fewer security forces were seen on patrol, and the ones who had been guarding rooftoops were removed. However, Madain remained surrounded by the Iraqi forces, who continued to search all vehicles leaving or entering it.
Philippine Secretary of National Defense Gilberto Teodoro Jr on Tuesday hit out at China at an international forum after a memo asserting Beijing’s position over their longstanding maritime dispute was delivered to him while he was speaking on stage. The unusual incident was captured on video at the Seoul Defense Dialogue as the secretary was responding to a question about “gray zone” coercion in the South China Sea. The video shows what appears to be a conference staffer placing it on the table next to him while speaking. “I have a note here, I think this is from China,” he said, describing
Thai police yesterday said that they arrested a senior Buddhist monk on suspicion of embezzling US$2.8 million intended for his monastery, alongside a suspected female accomplice he was having sex with. The case is the latest scandal to hit the clergy in Buddhist-majority Thailand after a sex and extortion case involving senior monks last year prompted public outrage and calls for greater scrutiny of temple finances. Phra Wachirayan Wi, the 66-year-old abbot of the 14th-century Wat Phutthaisawan in the ancient capital of Ayutthaya, was arrested on Thursday on charges including embezzlement and money laundering, lead police investigator Pattanasak Bupphasuwan said. A 47-year-old woman
SECRET FOOTAGE: A 17-year-old girl told British broadcaster Channel 4 that she had been approached by a man who covertly recorded her and their interaction Calls are growing louder in Europe for action against “pervert” smart glasses after secretly filmed footage of girls and women appeared online — with a petition in Britain demanding a ban on their sale. Anyone wearing smart glasses can take photos, film videos, listen to music, make phone calls, translate text or interact with an artificial intelligence (AI) assistant, with sales now hitting millions. The devices grabbed attention this summer after a marketing tie-up between Kylie Jenner, beauty mogul and member of the Kardashian dynasty, and tech giant Meta. Since smartphones are now embedded in daily life, “big tech” is
China yesterday marked half a century since the death of Mao Zedong (毛澤東), founder of the People’s Republic, who brought roughly one-quarter of the world’s population under communist rule and whose specter still haunts China’s future. Mao’s death on Sept. 9, 1976, at age 82, mourned by many and welcomed by some who suffered under his nearly three-decade rule, also hastened the end of the Cultural Revolution, a frenzied mass movement he launched in 1966. The party later condemned the Cultural Revolution as a grave error for which Mao bore primary responsibility, but still reveres him, saying his achievements outweigh his mistakes. Mao’s
RSS