Two suicide attackers detonated car bombs in northern Iraq yesterday, killing at least five Iraqis and wounding 40, hospital and police officials said, as raging violence claimed more than 20 lives during the past 24 hours across Iraq.
The bombs exploded at an entrance to an Iraqi military base in Sinjar, about 120km northwest of Mosul, said a police official.
The bodies of least five Iraqis killed in the attack were brought to Sinjar Hospital, said a hospital official, and 40 people were wounded.
PHOTO: AP
More than 20 people have been killed across Iraq during the past 24 hours, all victims of a raging, increasingly sectarian insurgency that US-backed authorities are struggling to put down.
Yesterday, Japan's Foreign Ministry said in Tokyo that it is trying to verify if a dead Asian man pictured in Internet photos is a Japanese hostage in Iraq. Late Friday, the Japanese news agency reported a Web site claim by Sunni militant group Ansar al-Sunnah Army that Akihiko Saito had died and said the group had posted pictures of the bloodied victim. Saito, a security consultant, has been missing in Iraq since his convoy was ambushed early in May. He worked for Hart Security Ltd, a British security firm.
Ten Iraqis were killed and their bodies dumped in the volatile western border city of Qaim after returning from a pilgrimage to a holy site in neighboring Syria, police said yesterday. Relatives of five of the victims told police the group had been visiting the Sayda Zeinab Shiite Muslim shrine in Damascus and returned via the Waleed border crossing.
At a funeral yesterday for four of the victims in the predominantly Shiite Muslim city of Diwaniyah, 170km south of Baghdad, many of the 150 mourners chanted "revenge, revenge" as they followed four coffins draped in Iraq's red, white and black flags.
Violence continued throughout cities south of Baghdad in a region dubbed the Triangle of Death, where scores of bodies have been found in an apparent tit-for-tat wave of sectarian violence.
Two civilians were killed and three injured when clashes erupted late Friday between militants and Iraqi soldiers in Mahmoudiya, about 30km south of Baghdad.
Gunmen killed another five people Friday during a car exhibition in the nearby city of Latifiyah.
Ali said police have also found the bullet-riddled bodies of five Iraqis in a car on a road in the volatile Anbar province, before they were returned to their home city of Hillah, 95km south of Baghdad.
A suicide car bomb attack on a police patrol instead killed three civilians Friday in Tikrit, north of Baghdad. Six policemen were among 18 people wounded.
North of Baghdad in Kirkuk, Sheik Sabhan Khalaf al-Jibouri, a moderate Sunni Muslim tribal leader with close ties to Iraqi Kurds, was killed Friday in a hail of machine-gun fire.
In the capital, gunmen killed a western Baghdad tribal leader Samir Abdel Laith and real estate agent Sheik Samir Abdul-Razziq in separate drive-by shootings Friday in the western Jihad neighborhood.
School bullies in Singapore are to face caning under new guidelines, but the education minister on Tuesday said it would be meted out only as a last resort with strict safeguards. Human rights groups regularly criticize Singapore for the use of corporal punishment, which remains part of the school and criminal justice systems, but authorities have defended it as a deterrent to crime and serious misconduct. Caning was discussed in the parliament after legislators asked how it would be used in relation to bullying in schools. The debate followed stricter guidelines on serious student misconduct, including bullying, unveiled by the Singaporean Ministry of
A MESSAGE: Japan’s participation in the Balikatan drills is a clear deterrence signal to China not to attack Taiwan while the US is busy in the Middle East, an analyst said The Japan Self-Defense Forces yesterday fired a Type 88 anti-ship missile during a joint maritime exercise with US, Australian and Philippine forces, hitting a decommissioned Philippine Navy ship in waters facing the disputed South China Sea, in drills that underscore Tokyo’s rising willingness to project military power on China’s doorstep. The drill took place as Manila and Tokyo began talks on a potential defense equipment transfer, made possible by Japan’s decision to scrap restrictions on military exports. The discussions include the possible early transfer of Abukuma-class destroyers and TC-90 aircraft to the Philippines, Japanese Minister of Defense Shinjiro Koizumi said. Philippine Secretary of
‘GROSS NEGLIGENCE?’ Despite a spleen typically being significantly smaller than a liver, the surgeon said he believed Bryan’s spleen was ‘double the size of what is normal’ A Florida surgeon who is facing criminal charges after allegedly removing a patient’s liver instead of his spleen has said he is “forever traumatized” by that person’s death. In a deposition from November last year that was recently obtained by NBC, 44-year-old Thomas Shaknovsky described the death of 70-year-old William Bryan as an “incredibly unfortunate event that I regret deeply.” Bryan died after the botched surgery; and last month, a grand jury in Tallahassee indicted Shaknovsky on a charge of manslaughter. “I’m forever traumatized by it and hurt by it,” Shaknovsky added, also saying that wrong-site surgeries can happen “during
A South Korean judge who last week more than doubled former South Korean first lady Kim Keon-hee’s prison sentence was found dead yesterday, police said. Shin Jong-o was found unconscious at about 1am at the Seoul High Court building, an investigator at the Seocho District Police Station in Seoul said. Shin was taken to a hospital and pronounced dead, he said. “There is no sign of foul play in the death,” the investigator added. Local media reported that Shin had left a suicide note, but the investigator said there was none. On Tuesday last week, Shin presided over 53-year-old Kim’s appeal trial, finding her guilty
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