British troops conducted raids overnight in Basra and detained a dozen people suspected of links to a spate of deadly attacks against British forces, a British military spokesman said.
The raids came hours after British Prime Minister Tony Blair accused Iran and Lebanon's Hezbollah movement of supplying technology and explosives to Shiite Muslim militant groups operating in Iraq, although he said he had no proof.
Military spokesman Major Steven Melbourne said: "We had an operation last night in Basra and 12 people were arrested. The investigation is ongoing and we cannot give any details about the people who were detained."
"There have been a lot of attacks against multi-national forces in recent week and there were certain individuals that we needed to question and about whom we had good intelligence," he said.
Military commanders suspect that militant groups with links to Iraq's rebel Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr have been aided by Shiite Iran in carrying out the attacks. Sources with Sadr's office in Basra said those detained overnight included several lieutenants in Basra's interior affairs department, which is part of the Interior Ministry.
"They are mostly Sadr people," one of the sources said.
He said some of the suspects were seized from the police building that British forces attacked late last month to free two undercover soldiers who had been detained by Iraqi police. The military spokesman said that the arrests had been conducted peacefully, with no shots fired, and that more details would be made available shortly.
offensive kills 29
A US offensive aimed at uprooting al-Qaeda in Iraq insurgents in western Iraq before next week's constitutional referendum killed 29 militants, including 20 who died when warplanes bombed an abandoned hotel they had commandeered, the military said.
The fighting occurred on Thursday during one of two offensives being conducted by thousands of US troops and hundreds of Iraqi soldiers in several Euphrates River towns that insurgents were virtually controlling after the withdrawal of most Iraqi police and soldiers.
Elsewhere, residents in Baghdad and other cities were receiving copies of Iraq's draft constitution, though some refused to take it and some shopkeepers balked at passing it out, fearing reprisals by militants determined to wreck the crucial Oct. 15 referendum.
"Some people are excited to take it. Others are refusing to touch it," Mohammed Ali, a shopkeeper in western Baghdad who handed out about 150, said.
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
US President Donald Trump on Friday said Washington was “locked and loaded” to respond if Iran killed protesters, prompting Tehran to warn that intervention would destabilize the region. Protesters and security forces on Thursday clashed in several Iranian cities, with six people reported killed, the first deaths since the unrest escalated. Shopkeepers in Tehran on Sunday last week went on strike over high prices and economic stagnation, actions that have since spread into a protest movement that has swept into other parts of the country. If Iran “violently kills peaceful protesters, which is their custom, the United States of America will come to
‘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
Auschwitz survivor Eva Schloss, the stepsister of teenage diarist Anne Frank and a tireless educator about the horrors of the Holocaust, has died. She was 96. The Anne Frank Trust UK, of which Schloss was honorary president, said she died on Saturday in London, where she lived. Britain’s King Charles III said he was “privileged and proud” to have known Schloss, who cofounded the charitable trust to help young people challenge prejudice. “The horrors that she endured as a young woman are impossible to comprehend and yet she devoted the rest of her life to overcoming hatred and prejudice, promoting kindness, courage, understanding
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