A car bomb exploded yesterday near a Baghdad junior high school for girls, killing six people, a day after 49 Iraqis died in a string of explosions, suicide attacks and drive-by shootings.
Yesterday's blast occurred near eastern Baghdad's well-known Withaq Square, a Christian neighborhood in the Alwiyah residential area, at about 10:30am, destroying at least three cars and damaging several buildings.
It came as the US military announced that a two-day operation with more than 2,000 Iraqi soldiers and police, their largest-ever joint campaign in the Baghdad area, had rounded up 428 suspected insurgents. The US military said the raid was aimed at quelling the upsurge in car bomb attacks in the capital, which have averaged almost one a day this month.
The operation, code-named "Squeeze Play," kicked off Sunday night and Monday involved 1,500 US and 2,500 Iraqi soldiers, including 600 commandos from the interior ministry's special Wolf Brigade, US military spokesman Major Webster Wright told reporters.
The hundreds arrested were taken to a special internment camp set up at a former army base near the international airport where they were housed in tents and disused buildings, Wright said.
Those detained included at least two Syrians, two Egyptians and two Yemenis, he said.
But insurgents continued to wreak havoc in the Iraqi capital despite the crackdown centering on the Abu Ghraib area targeting militants though responsible for multiple attacks on the US-detention facility there and the road linking downtown to the international airport.
Residents called police about a suspicious-looking car parked opposite the Dijlah Junior High School for Girls in Alwiyah. As bomb disposal experts approached the vehicle, it exploded and killed six bystanders, said police Captain Husham Ismael.
Three civilians and one policeman were also injured but none of the school's students were believed to be among the casualties.
"May God seek revenge for those who were killed or injured," an elderly woman screamed outside a hospital were casualties were being brought.
"We hope that such killers be killed or perished as they kill our youth. Those killers are against homeland, against Islam. May God punish them," she said.
At least 615 people, including 49 US troops, have been killed since April 28, when Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari announced his new Shiite-dominated government. Washington hopes his government will eventually train police and an army capable of securing Iraq and allowing the withdrawal of coalition troops.
Iraq's National Assembly convened yesterday and is expected to announce the head of a committee charged with drafting Iraq's new constitution, which must be drawn up by mid-August and put to a referendum by October.
Amid a wave of sectarian violence, there have been calls for greater Sunni participation in drafting the constitution. Just 17 Sunnis are in the assembly following a decision by many Sunnis not to participate in Jan. 30 elections, either by choice or fear of insurgents.
Indonesia yesterday began enforcing its newly ratified penal code, replacing a Dutch-era criminal law that had governed the country for more than 80 years and marking a major shift in its legal landscape. Since proclaiming independence in 1945, the Southeast Asian country had continued to operate under a colonial framework widely criticized as outdated and misaligned with Indonesia’s social values. Efforts to revise the code stalled for decades as lawmakers debated how to balance human rights, religious norms and local traditions in the world’s most populous Muslim-majority nation. The 345-page Indonesian Penal Code, known as the KUHP, was passed in 2022. It
‘DISRESPECTFUL’: Katie Miller, the wife of Trump’s most influential adviser, drew ire by posting an image of Greenland in the colors of the US flag, captioning it ‘SOON’ US President Donald Trump on Sunday doubled down on his claim that Greenland should become part of the US, despite calls by the Danish prime minister to stop “threatening” the territory. Washington’s military intervention in Venezuela has reignited fears for Greenland, which Trump has repeatedly said he wants to annex, given its strategic location in the arctic. While aboard Air Force One en route to Washington, Trump reiterated the goal. “We need Greenland from the standpoint of national security, and Denmark is not going to be able to do it,” he said in response to a reporter’s question. “We’ll worry about Greenland in
PERILOUS JOURNEY: Over just a matter of days last month, about 1,600 Afghans who were at risk of perishing due to the cold weather were rescued in the mountains Habibullah set off from his home in western Afghanistan determined to find work in Iran, only for the 15-year-old to freeze to death while walking across the mountainous frontier. “He was forced to go, to bring food for the family,” his mother, Mah Jan, said at her mud home in Ghunjan village. “We have no food to eat, we have no clothes to wear. The house in which I live has no electricity, no water. I have no proper window, nothing to burn for heating,” she added, clutching a photograph of her son. Habibullah was one of at least 18 migrants who died
Russia early yesterday bombarded Ukraine, killing two people in the Kyiv region, authorities said on the eve of a diplomatic summit in France. A nationwide siren was issued just after midnight, while Ukraine’s military said air defenses were operating in several places. In the capital, a private medical facility caught fire as a result of the Russian strikes, killing one person and wounding three others, the State Emergency Service of Kyiv said. It released images of rescuers removing people on stretchers from a gutted building. Another pre-dawn attack on the neighboring city of Fastiv killed one man in his 70s, Kyiv Governor Mykola
RSS