Police probing how a bomb was smuggled into a Baghdad ministry in a bid to kill Iraq's Shiite vice president believe the attack was carried out by an insider, a security official said yesterday.
"Thirty-five employees of the public works ministry are now under interrogation by the interior ministry about how the bomb was brought into the building," the official said on condition of anonymity.
"Most of them are bodyguards and ministry security men," he said, adding that those wounded in the explosion will be questioned once they recover.
Vice President Adel Abdel Mahdi escaped with little more than a few scratches when a bomb exploded Monday next to a room in the ministry where he was attending a function, but five people were killed.
State television described Monday's bombing as an assassination attempt while the security official said it appeared that high explosive was used.
"Employees were told a day before that the vice president was going to attend the ceremony. So the person who planted the bomb was already aware that he was going to be present," the security official said.
"They started preventing visitors from entering the ministry a day earlier, so the criminal must be from inside. Early investigations indicate that an employee ... smuggled TNT into the building," he said.
Violence flared yesterday in the town of Al-Wahda, southeast of Baghdad, when three brothers were among five people killed by a roadside bomb, police said.
The five were in a car heading to the Iraqi capital from Al-Wahda, about 40km away, when their vehicle was hit by the bomb, police official Mohsen Mohammed said.
Yesterday, the country was buoyed by news that the Cabinet had given its long-awaited nod to a draft oil law.
The law, which will now be submitted to parliament for approval, aims to distribute revenues from crude oil exports equitably across all 18 provinces and open the sector to foreign investors.
"This law has been based on our national interest. It will encourage the bringing together of all component parts of the Iraqi people," Maliki told a news conference after the Cabinet gave its approval late on Monday.
Oil exports are Iraq's single most important source of revenue.
"This law is one of the most important achievements in Iraq since the voting of the Constitution," Planning Minister Ali Baban said.
"There was clear participation of all political movements in this law, which will boost national unity. This law will create a single oil revenue stream for all Iraqis," he said.
Tens of thousands of Filipino Catholics yesterday twirled white cloths and chanted “Viva, viva,” as a centuries-old statue of Jesus Christ was paraded through the streets of Manila in the nation’s biggest annual religious event. The day-long procession began before dawn, with barefoot volunteers pulling the heavy carriage through narrow streets where the devout waited in hopes of touching the icon, believed to hold miraculous powers. Thousands of police were deployed to manage crowds that officials believe could number in the millions by the time the statue reaches its home in central Manila’s Quiapo church around midnight. More than 800 people had sought
DENIAL: Pyongyang said a South Korean drone filmed unspecified areas in a North Korean border town, but Seoul said it did not operate drones on the dates it cited North Korea’s military accused South Korea of flying drones across the border between the nations this week, yesterday warning that the South would face consequences for its “unpardonable hysteria.” Seoul quickly denied the accusation, but the development is likely to further dim prospects for its efforts to restore ties with Pyongyang. North Korean forces used special electronic warfare assets on Sunday to bring down a South Korean drone flying over North Korea’s border town. The drone was equipped with two cameras that filmed unspecified areas, the General Staff of the North Korean People’s Army said in a statement. South Korea infiltrated another drone
COMMUNIST ALIGNMENT: To Lam wants to combine party chief and state presidency roles, with the decision resting on the election of 200 new party delegates next week Communist Party of Vietnam General Secretary To Lam is seeking to combine his party role with the state presidency, officials said, in a move that would align Vietnam’s political structure more closely to China’s, where President Xi Jinping (習近平) heads the party and state. Next week about 1,600 delegates are to gather in Hanoi to commence a week-long communist party congress, held every five years to select new leaders and set policy goals for the single-party state. Lam, 68, bade for both top positions at a party meeting last month, seeking initial party approval ahead of the congress, three people briefed by
Cambodia’s government on Wednesday said that it had arrested and extradited to China a tycoon who has been accused of running a huge online scam operation. The Cambodian Ministry of the Interior said that Prince Holding Group chairman Chen Zhi (陳志) and two other Chinese citizens were arrested and extradited on Tuesday at the request of Chinese authorities. Chen formerly had dual nationality, but his Cambodian citizenship was revoked last month, the ministry said. US prosecutors in October last year brought conspiracy charges against Chen, alleging that he had been the mastermind behind a multinational cyberfraud network, used his other businesses to launder
RSS