A suicide car bomb exploded near an Iraqi army checkpoint in Baghdad yesterday, destroying several cars and sending a column of smoke into the air, witnesses said.
There were no immediate reports of any casualties in the attack, which occurred near a restaurant on a square in the Karrada district of the capital. Iraqi police and the army sealed off the area.
Television pictures showed several police cars and ambulances at the scene, with sirens wailing.
The blast followed an attack on Friday in which a suicide bomber blew himself up at a bus station killing at least five people and wounding 17, police said.
Separately, a US soldier was killed by a roadside bomb southeast of Baghdad, the US military said yesterday.
The death raises to 1,911 the number of US troops to have died in Iraq since the start of the war.
Meanwhile, heavy fighting has broken out in the Euphrates River city of Ramadi, police and hospital officials said, and the US military reported the deaths of two more soldiers around the militant stronghold, the scene of nearly one-quarter of 29 American deaths this month.
In Baghdad, a suicide bomber on a public minibus set off an explosives belt on Friday as the vehicle approached a busy terminal Friday, killing at least five people and wounding eight, police said. Elsewhere in the capital, a roadside bomb killed a US Army soldier whose convoy was patrolling southeastern Baghdad Friday night.
Gunmen also killed a member of the commission charged with ensuring former members of Saddam Hussein's Baathist regime are banned from the Iraqi government, police said. Thirteen commission members have been killed since it was created two years ago.
The US military declined to say if it was conducting a large offensive against Ramadi, but police and residents have reported heavy fighting there during the past week. Seven service members have died in or near the city since Sept. 1.
"There are 30 to 40 battalion-level operations going on across Iraq on any given day," said Lieutenant Colonel Steven Boylan, a US military spokesman in Baghdad. "What you are seeing is the pattern of operations that we have been conducting almost every day here."
The latest US military fatalities there occurred Thursday when two soldiers were killed, one by a roadside bombing between Ramadi and Fallujah, the other in a gunbattle in Ramadi, 110km west of Baghdad.
Ramadi police Captain Nasir Al-Alousi said American forces airlifted equipment into the city stadium before dawn Friday. He said clashes erupted in that area and spread to an industrial zone after sunrise, continuing until at least midday.
Dr. Omar al-Rawi at Ramadi General Hospital said two people were killed and eight wounded in the fighting. Police Lieutenant Mohammed Tirbas Al-Obaidi said a roadside bomb destroyed an American armored vehicle, but it was impossible to say if there were casualties because US forces blocked the area.
The deadliest day for US forces in Ramadi this month was on Monday, when four soldiers attached to the Marines died in two roadside bombings.
Militants have used Ramadi as a stronghold since the start of the insurgency two years ago. The city of about 300,000 is the capital of Anbar province, which fans out west from Baghdad to the Saudi, Jordanian and Syrian borders.
It includes much of the Sunni heartland, where residents lived a relatively privileged life under Saddam, a Sunni. Since Saddam's ouster by the US-led coalition, the insurgency has grown in strength. At one time or another, militants have controlled most of the major population centers along the Euphrates, which flows southwest through the province from the Syrian border toward Baghdad.
US forces conducted a major offensive in the region in November to retake control of Fallujah, 50km east of Ramadi. American troops continue fighting skirmishes along the Euphrates, a major infiltration route for foreign fighters sneaking into the country from Syria to fight under the banner of al-Qaida in Iraq, the creation of Jordanian-born terrorist Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi.
A major focus of US operations in Anbar province, a senior American military officer has said, was to help the Iraqis regain control of a 400km stretch of Syrian border on either side of the city of Qaim. The official said it was imperative that the border be closed to insurgents before the Oct. 15 referendum on Iraq's new constitution.
Much of the minority Sunni political and religious leadership -- and now some Shiite leaders -- oppose the proposed charter. But the new basic law got a major boost this week, winning support from Iraq's most revered Shiite leader, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani.
In the southern city of Basra, meanwhile, an Iraqi government delegation from Baghdad was meeting with a provincial commission to examine evidence about anti-British rioting in the city Monday and serious tensions that have developed between local authorities and British forces in the region.
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