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.
SEEKING CHANGE: A hospital worker said she did not vote in previous elections, but ‘now I can see that maybe my vote can change the system and the country’ Voting closed yesterday across the Solomon Islands in the south Pacific nation’s first general election since the government switched diplomatic allegiance from Taiwan to Beijing and struck a secret security pact that has raised fears of the Chinese navy gaining a foothold in the region. The Solomon Islands’ closer relationship with China and a troubled domestic economy weighed on voters’ minds as they cast their ballots. As many as 420,000 registered voters had their say across 50 national seats. For the first time, the national vote also coincided with elections for eight of the 10 local governments. Esther Maeluma cast her vote in the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was