A car bomb exploded outside a police academy yesterday, and when police set up a checkpoint to close the area, a second car bomb went off, authorities said. At least six Iraqis were killed and 25 wounded, a hospital official said.
The carefully coordinated attack by insurgents in Tikrit, former president Saddam Hussein's hometown, occurred as new recruits at the academy were about to travel to Amman, Jordan, for a training program, said police Lieutenant Shalan Allawi.
At Tikrit General Hospital, Dr. Mohammed Ayash said four policemen and two civilians were killed by the bombs, and 23 policemen and two civilians wounded. Tikrit is 130km north of Baghdad.
South of the capital, three insurgents were killed yesterday as the roadside bomb they were trying to plant in the town of Mahawil exploded, police said in the nearby city of Hillah.
The explosions were the latest in a series of stepped up attacks by insurgents, as a US-financed program trains Iraqi military and police recruits in the hope they can improve security in Iraq and one day replace the US-led coalition forces.
On Saturday, at least 16 people were killed, including a US soldier, as the insurgents struck across the country with a series of bomb attacks.
US forces captured six Iraqi men suspected in the downing of a civilian helicopter and the shooting death of the lone survivor. The suspects in the helicopter downing were caught Saturday after US soldiers from Task Force Baghdad were tipped off by an Iraqi civilian who told the Americans that he knew where insurgents had stashed a blue KIA pickup truck that was used in the attack and led them to the site, the military said in a statement.
Soldiers searched two nearby houses shortly after midnight Saturday, arresting three men and seizing bomb-making material in the first home. Three suspects were grabbed from the second residence and all were being questioned, the military said.
US forces did not identify the captives or say where they were taken into custody.
The Russian-made Mi-8 helicopter, flying from Baghdad to Tikrit, was shot down about 19km north of the capital on Thursday. The dead included six US bodyguards for US diplomats, three Bulgarian crew members and two security guards from Fiji.
Two groups claimed responsibility for the attack and released video to support their claims.
The aircraft was owned by Heli Air of Bulgaria and chartered by Toronto-based SkyLink Aviation Inc. The six Americans were employed by Blackwater Security Consulting -- a subsidiary of security contractor Blackwater USA of Moyock, North Carolina. Four of its employees were slain and mutilated by insurgents in Fallujah a year ago.
A US YouTuber who caused outrage for filming himself kissing a statue commemorating Korean wartime sex slaves has been sentenced to six months in prison, a court in Seoul said yesterday. Johnny Somali, 25, gained notoriety several years ago for recording himself doing a series of provocative stunts in South Korea and Japan, and streaming them on platforms such as YouTube and Twitch. South Korean authorities indicted Somali — whose real name is Ramsey Khalid Ismael — in 2024 on public order violations and obstruction of business, and banned him from leaving the country. “The court has sentenced him to six months in
Former Lima mayor Rafael Lopez Aliaga, a Peruvian presidential hopeful, gathered hundreds of supporters in Lima on Tuesday and gave authorities 24 hours to annul the first round of the country’s election over allegations of fraud. Lopez Aliaga is locked in a tight three-way race with two other candidates for second place in Sunday’s vote. The election runner-up wins a ticket to June’s presidential run-off against front-runner Keiko Fujimori. “I am giving them 24 hours to declare this electoral fraud null and void,” said Lopez Aliaga, surrounded by a crowd of several hundred supporters. “If it is not declared null and void tomorrow,
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A humanoid robot that won a half-marathon race for robots in Beijing on Sunday ran faster than the human world record in a show of China’s technological leaps. The winner from Honor, a Chinese smartphone maker, completed the 21km race in 50 minutes and 26 seconds, said a WeChat post by the Beijing Economic-Technological Development Area, also known as Beijing E-Town, where the race began. That was faster than the human world record holder, Ugandan Jacob Kiplimo, who finished the same distance in about 57 minutes in March at the Lisbon road race. The performance by the robot marked a significant step forward
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