A roadside bomb killed one police officer in Baghdad while a mortar round killed a man at the Interior Ministry yesterday as Iraq's prime minister held meetings aimed at finding new defense and interior ministers.
The roadside bomb in southern Baghdad killed one police officer and wounded four. In the Interior Ministry killing, police said a car loaded with mortar rounds and explosives suddenly exploded, scattering shells over a large area.
One landed in the Interior Ministry and killed one man, while another landed on a soccer field and injured three city workers, police Captain Mohammed Abdul-Ghani said. The car, which was empty, was thought to have been used by insurgents.
PHOTO: AP
Police found the bodies of three blindfolded and handcuffed men who had been tortured and shot in the head. The bodies were found in central and southern Baghdad, police Captain Jamil Hussein said.
A CBS reporter was listed in critical but stable condition one day after a car bomb attack killed her two man crew, a US soldier and an Iraqi contractor. She was flown to a US military hospital in Germany.
CBS cameraman Paul Douglas, 48, and soundman James Brolan, 42, both Britons, died while network correspondent Kimberly Dozier, 39, was critically wounded. US officials said she was first taken to the US military hospital in Balad, 80km north of Baghdad.
Dozens of journalists have been injured, killed or kidnapped in Iraq since the 2003 US-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein.
The death of the US soldier came as the US marked Memorial Day. It brought to 2,467 the number of US military members who have died since the war started in 2003, according to an Associated Press count.
Iraq's parliament debated the deteriorating security situation in the capital and some of its outlying provinces, but failed to set up a commission to deal with the problem because of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's inability to appoint ministers of defense and interior.
Al-Maliki was expected to hold a series of meetings with political leader yesterday to find a way out of the impasse. More than a week after al-Maliki's unity government took office, Iraq's ethnic, sectarian and secular parties are struggling to agree on who should run the crucial interior and defense ministries, which control the various Iraqi security forces.
The Shiite-dominated Interior Ministry, which controls the police forces, has been promised to that community. Sunni Arabs are to get the defense ministry, overseeing the army.
‘HYANGDO’: A South Korean lawmaker said there was no credible evidence to support rumors that Kim Jong-un has a son with a disability or who is studying abroad South Korea’s spy agency yesterday said that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s daughter, Kim Ju-ae, who last week accompanied him on a high-profile visit to Beijing, is understood to be his recognized successor. The teenager drew global attention when she made her first official overseas trip with her father, as he met with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) and Russian President Vladimir Putin. Analysts have long seen her as Kim’s likely successor, although some have suggested she has an older brother who is being secretly groomed as the next leader. The South Korean National Intelligence Service (NIS) “assesses that she [Kim Ju-ae]
In the week before his fatal shooting, right-wing US political activist Charlie Kirk cheered the boom of conservative young men in South Korea and warned about a “globalist menace” in Tokyo on his first speaking tour of Asia. Kirk, 31, who helped amplify US President Donald Trump’s agenda to young voters with often inflammatory rhetoric focused on issues such as gender and immigration, was shot in the neck on Wednesday at a speaking event at a Utah university. In Seoul on Friday last week, he spoke about how he “brought Trump to victory,” while addressing Build Up Korea 2025, a conservative conference
China has approved the creation of a national nature reserve at the disputed Scarborough Shoal (Huangyan Island, 黃岩島), claimed by Taiwan and the Philippines, the government said yesterday, as Beijing moves to reinforce its territorial claims in the contested region. A notice posted online by the Chinese State Council said that details about the area and size of the project would be released separately by the Chinese National Forestry and Grassland Administration. “The building of the Huangyan Island National Nature Reserve is an important guarantee for maintaining the diversity, stability and sustainability of the natural ecosystem of Huangyan Island,” the notice said. Scarborough
DEADLOCK: Putin has vowed to continue fighting unless Ukraine cedes more land, while talks have been paused with no immediate results expected, the Kremlin said Russia on Friday said that peace talks with Kyiv were on “pause” as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy warned that Russian President Vladimir Putin still wanted to capture the whole of Ukraine. Meanwhile, US President Donald Trump said that he was running out of patience with Putin, and the NATO alliance said it would bolster its eastern front after Russian drones were shot down in Polish airspace this week. The latest blow to faltering diplomacy came as Russia’s army staged major military drills with its key ally Belarus. Despite Trump forcing the warring sides to hold direct talks and hosting Putin in Alaska, there
RSS