Four American and four Italian military personnel were killed in separate aircraft crashes, military officials said yesterday, as Iraq's prime minister condemned the arrest of a top Sunni political leader by US troops.
Monday's 12-hour detention of Iraqi Islamic Party leader Mohsen Abdul-Hamid did little to help American efforts to entice Iraq's once-dominant Sunni community back into the political fold. Many Sunnis feel slighted by the rise to power of the country's Shiite majority, which claimed political control following Saddam Hussein's ouster two years ago.
Iraq's raging insurgency, which has killed more than 760 people since the new Shiite-led government was announced April 28, is believed to be strongly backed by radical Sunni extremists.
The arrests came after the launch of Operation Lightning, a large-scale anti-insurgent campaign that entered its third day yesterday.
"We have so far achieved good results and rounded up a large number of saboteurs, some are Iraqis and some are non-Iraqis," Iraqi President al-Jaafari said without elaborating.
The operation, which will see more than 40,000 Iraqi security forces deployed to the capital's streets, aims at ridding Baghdad of militants and, in particular, suicide car bombers, the deadliest and regular weapon of choice for insurgents.
But despite government efforts to curb the violence, insurgents launched attacks inside Baghdad and north of the capital.
Gunmen shot dead Jerges Mohammed Sultan, an Iraqi journalist working for Iraqi state TV channel Al-Iraqiya, as he left his house in the northern city of Mosul, said Baha-aldin al-Bakri from al-Jumhouri hospital.
Insurgents have in the past targeted both the station, which has been mortared, and its journalists. One of its anchorwomen, Raiedah Mohammed Wageh Wazan, was kidnapped and killed in late February.
A suicide car bomber killed two Iraqi soldiers in an early morning attack on an army checkpoint near Buhriz, about 60km north of Baghdad, said Diyala provincial police spokesman Ali Fadhil.
Five gunmen fired from a speeding car on a police patrol in eastern Baghdad's Dora district, wounding four policemen, said police Captain Firas Qaiti.
On Monday, at least 27 policemen were killed and 118 wounded after two terrorists carrying explosives blew themselves up among a crowd of 500 commandos protesting a government move to disband their special forces unit in Hillah, about 95km south of Baghdad.
In an apparent claim of responsibility, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's al-Qaeda in Iraq said in an alleged Internet statement saying one of its members attacked "a group of special Iraqi forces." The same group had claimed responsibility for a Feb. 28 attack against police recruits in Hillah that killed 125 people.
Militants, particularly extremists entering from neighboring states, regard Iraqi security forces as prime targets in their campaign against the US military, which hinges its eventual exit from Iraq on the ability of local soldiers and police to handle the insurgency.
The Iraqi single-engine Comp Air 7SL aircraft crashed near the village of Jalula, about 130km northeast of Baghdad, said US military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Fred Wellman.
The aircraft, one of seven used by the Iraqi Air Force used for surveillance and personnel transport, had departed a Kirkuk air base bound for Jalula when it crashed, the military said in a statement. It was not immediately clear what caused the crash, which killed four US Air Force members and an Iraqi pilot, Wellman said.
The Italian AB-412 military helicopter crashed overnight killing its two Italian pilots and two soldiers, all attached to the army.
A ship that appears to be taking on the identity of a scrapped gas carrier exited the Strait of Hormuz on Friday, showing how strategies to get through the waterway are evolving as the Middle East war progresses. The vessel identifying as liquefied natural gas (LNG) carrier Jamal left the Strait on Friday morning, ship-tracking data show. However, the same tanker was also recorded as having beached at an Indian demolition yard in October last year, where it is being broken up, according to market participants and port agent’s reports. The ship claiming to be Jamal is likely a zombie vessel that
Japan is to downgrade its description of ties with China from “one of its most important” in an annual diplomatic report, according to a draft reviewed by Reuters, as relations with Beijing worsen. This year’s Diplomatic Bluebook, which Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s government is expected to approve next month, would instead describe China as an important neighbor and the relationship as “strategic” and “mutually beneficial.” The draft cites a series of confrontations with Beijing over the past year, including export controls on rare earths, radar lock-ons targeting Japanese military aircraft and increased pressure around Taiwan. The shift in tone underscores a deterioration
LAW CONSTRAINTS: The US has been pressing allies to send warships to open the Strait, but Tokyo’s military actions are limited under its postwar pacifist constitution Japan could consider deploying its military for minesweeping in the Strait of Hormuz if a ceasefire is reached in the war on Iran, Japanese Minister of Foreign Affairs Toshimitsu Motegi said yesterday. “If there were to be a complete ceasefire, hypothetically speaking, then things like minesweeping could come up,” Motegi said. “This is purely hypothetical, but if a ceasefire were established and naval mines were creating an obstacle, then I think that would be something to consider.” Japan’s military actions are limited under its postwar pacifist constitution, but 2015 security legislation allows Tokyo to use its Self-Defense Forces overseas if an attack,
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) yesterday faced a regional election battle in Rhineland-Palatinate, now held by the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD). Merz’s CDU has enjoyed a narrow poll lead over the SPD — their coalition partners at the national level — who have ruled the mid-sized state for 35 years. Polling third is the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), which spells a greater threat to the two centrist parties in several state elections in September in the country’s ex-communist east. The picturesque state of Rhineland-Palatinate, bordering France, Belgium and Luxembourg and with a population of about 4 million,
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