The skulls, bones and tattered clothing of a team of Iraqi martial arts experts have been found more than a year after they disappeared, presumed kidnapped, in an al-Qaeda stronghold west of Baghdad.
At least 13 bodies were found in a ditch out in the desert 97km west of Ramadi in Anbar Province, one of Iraq's most violent areas and where al-Qaeda and Sunni Arab insurgents are battling US and Iraqi forces. Plastic athletic sandals lay scattered on the ground near the bodies. All had been shot.
The remains were taken to Imam Ali Hospital in Baghdad's predominantly Shiite Sadr City neighborhood, home to most of the athletes, where they were DNA tested. The men were members of a private sports club that hopes to one day send members to the Olympics. Weeping relatives gathered on Saturday at the hospital to try to identify the bodies.
The bodies were very badly decomposed. Just the bones and clothes remained said Qasim al-Mudalal, the director of Imam Ali Hospital.
The 15 tae kwon do experts were abducted in May last year as they were traveling by bus through the Anbar desert on their way to a training camp in Jordan. Two of the athletes are unaccounted for although Mudalal suggested partial remains were also recovered.
The Iraqi government had tried to secure their release but no word had been heard of them until last week's grisly find.
"They were killed about the same time they were taken. They were killed and left in the desert," said Hameed al-Haies, head of a Sunni Arab group that has been fighting al-Qaeda in Anbar.
He said the men had not been wearing their team uniforms and family members had been able to identify most of them by the clothes they were wearing. An identity card was also found on one body belonging to 26-year-old squad member Haidar Jabbar.
Haies said members of the Anbar Salvation Council, a group of local Sunnis who have been fighting al-Qaeda in the province, found the bodies after an al-Qaeda captive told them where the athletes had been killed.
Iraqi athletes were rarely able to travel abroad during the rule of late president Saddam Hussein because of UN sanctions. Athletes forward to international competitions and more funding after Saddam was toppled in 2003 but many have been kidnapped and killed in Iraq's endless fighting between majority Shia and Sunni Arabs.
Ali Kanoun, said his cousin, Rasoul Salah, one of the victims, was never involved in politics.
"His dream was to represent his country in sports, but instead he was killed," Kanoun said.
Athletes and sports officials have increasingly become targets of threats, kidnappings and assassination attempts in Iraq, either as part of sectarian violence or for ransom. Victims include the Sunni head of one of Iraq's leading football clubs, an Iraqi international football referee and a top football player on the Iraqi Olympic team. Gunmen also kidnapped the chairman of Iraq's National Olympic Committee and at least 30 other officials last year.
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
A top Vietnamese property tycoon was on Thursday sentenced to death in one of the biggest corruption cases in history, with an estimated US$27 billion in damages. A panel of three hand-picked jurors and two judges rejected all defense arguments by Truong My Lan, chair of major developer Van Thinh Phat, who was found guilty of swindling cash from Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB) over a decade. “The defendant’s actions ... eroded people’s trust in the leadership of the [Communist] Party and state,” read the verdict at the trial in Ho Chi Minh City. After the five-week trial, 85 others were also sentenced on
Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, funeral home officials said. They were 62. The twins, listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins, died on April 7 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, obituaries posted by Leibensperger Funeral Homes of Hamburg said. The cause of death was not detailed. “When we were born, the doctors didn’t think we’d make 30, but we proved them wrong,” Lori said in an interview when they turned 50, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of