US forces in Iraq said yesterday they had arrested two leaders of a network suspected of killing about 900 civilians and wounding nearly 2,000 others in a series of high-profile car bomb attacks.
Haytham Kazim Abdallah al-Shimari and Haydar Rashid Nasir al-Shammari al-Jafar were arrested separately on March 21 in Baghdad's Sunni district of Adhamiyah, the US military said.
"It is estimated that ... the car bombs from this cell have killed approximately 900 innocent Iraqi civilians and another 1,950 have been wounded," the military said.
Shimari, the alleged leader of the network, was arrested after he and his driver engaged in a shootout with US troops trying to flag his vehicle down.
The US military said Shimari is suspected of "being involved in the planning and execution of the majority of car bombs which have killed hundreds of Iraqi citizens in Sadr City."
Sadr City, the impoverished Shiite district in Baghdad, has been repeatedly hit by devastating car bombs carried out by Sunni extremists in the Sunni-Shiite sectarian conflict that has engulfed the capital.
In November, 202 people were killed and hundreds more wounded in a coordinated car bombing in Sadr city, the biggest attack since the US-led invasion in 2003.
Jafar, the network's second in command, was arrested in Adhamiyah within 24 hours of Shimari's arrest following an intelligence tip, the military reported.
He was detained along with two other suspected members of the network, Ahmed Hassan Niami and Hamid Selman Allawi, while driving through Adhamiyah.
Insurgents have continued to carry out high-profile car bombs in and around Baghdad despite a massive security crackdown in the capital since Feb. 14.
Far from the violence ravaging Haiti, a market on the border with the Dominican Republic has maintained a welcome degree of normal everyday life. At the Dajabon border gate, a wave of Haitians press forward, eager to shop at the twice-weekly market about 200km from Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince. They are drawn by the market’s offerings — food, clothing, toys and even used appliances — items not always readily available in Haiti. However, with gang violence bad and growing ever worse in Haiti, the Dominican government has reinforced the usual military presence at the border and placed soldiers on alert. While the market continues to
An image of a dancer balancing on the words “China Before Communism” looms over Parisian commuters catching the morning metro, signaling the annual return of Shen Yun, a controversial spectacle of traditional Chinese dance mixed with vehement criticism of Beijing and conservative rhetoric. The Shen Yun Performing Arts company has slipped the beliefs of a spiritual movement called Falun Gong in between its technicolored visuals and leaping dancers since 2006, with advertising for the show so ubiquitous that it has become an Internet meme. Founded in 1992, Falun Gong claims nearly 100 million followers and has been subject to “persistent persecution” in
ONLINE VITRIOL: While Mo Yan faces a lawsuit, bottled water company Nongfu Spring and Tsinghua University are being attacked amid a rise in nationalist fervor At first glance, a Nobel prize winning author, a bottle of green tea and Beijing’s Tsinghua University have little in common, but in recent weeks they have been dubbed by China’s nationalist netizens as the “three new evils” in the fight to defend the country’s valor in cyberspace. Last month, a patriotic blogger called Wu Wanzheng filed a lawsuit against China’s only Nobel prize-winning author, Mo Yan (莫言), accusing him of discrediting the Communist army and glorifying Japanese soldiers in his fictional works set during the Japanese invasion of China. Wu, who posts online under the pseudonym “Truth-Telling Mao Xinghuo,” is seeking
‘SURPRISES’: The militants claim to have successfully tested a missile capable of reaching Mach 8 and vowed to strike ships heading toward the Cape of Good Hope Yemen’s Houthi rebels claim to have a new, hypersonic missile in their arsenal, Russia’s state media reported on Thursday, potentially raising the stakes in their attacks on shipping in the Red Sea and surrounding waterways against the backdrop of Israel’s war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip. The report by the state-run RIA Novosti news agency cited an unidentified official, but provided no evidence for the claim. It comes as Moscow maintains an aggressively counter-Western foreign policy amid its grinding war on Ukraine. However, the Houthis have for weeks hinted about “surprises” they plan for the battles at sea to counter the