US forces left a cordoned area around a house in the northern city of Mosul yesterday where eight suspected al-Qaeda members died in a gunfight last weekend, and the White House said it was "highly unlikely" that the terror leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was among the dead.
North of the capital, Diyala provincial police said a car bomb targeting US Humvees killed five civilians and wounded 12 bystanders in the town of Kanan. At least 145 Iraqi civilians have died in a series of attacks over the last four days, including two bombings at Shiite mosques and another at a funeral in religiously mixed Diyala Province.
Attacks
PHOTO: AP
In Baghdad, three people, including one police officer, were killed by gunmen, police said.
Over the weekend a US soldier near the capital and a Marine in the western town of Karmah were killed in separate insurgent attacks, the military said. In the southern city of Basra, a British soldier was killed and four others wounded by a roadside bomb.
During the intense gunbattle with suspected al-Qaeda members on Saturday, three insurgents detonated explosives and killed themselves to avoid capture, Iraqi officials said. Eleven Americans were also wounded, the US military said.
On Saturday, police Brigadier General Said Ahmed al-Jubouri said the raid was launched after a tip that top al-Qaeda operatives, possibly including al-Zarqawi, were in the house.
However, Trent Duffy, a White House spokesman, said Sunday that reports of al-Zarqawi's death were "highly unlikely and not credible." Eyewitnesses in Mosul said the US military, which had cordoned off the area around the two-story house, left the area early yesterday.
"We have no indication that Zarqawi was killed in this fight and we continue operations to search for him," said Lieutenant Colonel Barry Johnson, a US military spokesman.
The elusive al-Zarqawi has narrowly escaped capture in the past. US forces said they nearly caught him in a February 2005 raid that recovered his computer.
The US military also said on Sunday that 24 people -- including another Marine and 15 civilians -- were killed the day before in an ambush on a joint US-Iraqi patrol in Haditha, west of Baghdad in the volatile Euphrates River valley.
The three American deaths brought to at least 2,094 the number of US service members who have died since the war began in March 2003, according to an AP count.
Reconciliation
Meanwhile, in Cairo, Egypt, Iraq's president said on Sunday he was ready for talks with anti-government opposition figures and members of former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein's outlawed Baath Party, and he called on the Sunni-led insurgency to lay down its arms and join the political process.
But President Jalal Talabani, attending an Arab League-sponsored reconciliation conference, insisted that the Iraqi government would not meet with Baath Party members who are participating in the Sunni-led insurgency.
In Baghdad, hundreds of Sunnis on Sunday demanded an end to the torture of detainees and called for the international community to pressure Iraqi and US authorities to ensure that such abuse does not occur. Iraq's Shiite-led government has promised an investigation.
Australians were downloading virtual private networks (VPNs) in droves, while one of the world’s largest porn distributors said it was blocking users from its platforms as the country yesterday rolled out sweeping online age restriction. Australia in December became the first country to impose a nationwide ban on teenagers using social media. A separate law now requires artificial intelligence (AI)-powered chatbot services to keep certain content — including pornography, extreme violence and self-harm and eating disorder material — from minors or face fines of up to A$49.5 million (US$34.6 million). The country also joined Britain, France and dozens of US states requiring
Hungarian authorities temporarily detained seven Ukrainian citizens and seized two armored cars carrying tens of millions of euros in cash across Hungary on suspicion of money laundering, officials said on Friday. The Ukrainians were released on Friday, following their detention on Thursday, but Hungarian officials held onto the cash, prompting Ukraine to accuse Hungary’s Russia-friendly government of illegally seizing the money. “We will not tolerate this state banditism,” Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs Andrii Sybiha said. The seven detained Ukrainians were employees of the Ukrainian state-owned Oschadbank, who were traveling in the two armored cars that were carrying the money between Austria and
Kosovar President Vjosa Osmani on Friday after dissolving the Kosovar parliament said a snap election should be held as soon as possible to avoid another prolonged political crisis in the Balkan country at a time of global turmoil. Osmani said it is important for Kosovo to wrap up the upcoming election process and form functional institutions for political stability as the war rages in the Middle East. “Precisely because the geopolitical situation is that complex, it is important to finish this electoral process which is coming up,” she said. “It is very hard now to imagine what will happen next.” Kosovo, which declared
MORE BANS: Australia last year required sites to remove accounts held by under-16s, with a few countries pushing for similar action at an EU level and India considering its own ban Indonesia on Friday said it would ban social media access for children under 16, citing threats from online pornography, cyberbullying, online fraud and Internet addiction. “Accounts belonging to children under 16 on high-risk platforms will start to be deactivated, beginning with YouTube, TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, Threads, X, Bigo Live and Roblox,” Indonesian Minister of Communications and Digital Meutya Hafid said. “The government is stepping in so that parents no longer have to fight alone against the giants of the algorithm. Implementation will begin on March 28, 2026,” she said. The social media ban would be introduced in stages “until all platforms fulfill their
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