Radical Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr could end a ban on his militia's activities because of rising anger over US and Iraqi raids against his followers, an aide said amid concerns about rising violence and clashes between rival factions in the mainly Shiite south.
Al-Sadr's call in August for a six-month ceasefire has been credited with a sharp drop in the number of bullet-riddled bodies that turn up on the streets of Iraq and are believed to be victims of Shiite death squads.
Baghdad police found three people slain execution-style and bearing signs of torture on Friday, compared with the dozens often found on a typical day before al-Sadr's declaration. The morgue in the southern city of Kut received two bodies, including one pulled from the Tigris River.
Another five Iraqis were killed in attacks nationwide, including a woman who was caught up in a suicide attack north of Baghdad while she was walking to the market.
The US military reported that a US soldier was killed and four were wounded in southern Baghdad on Thursday when their unit was hit with an explosively formed penetrator. The US claims Iran supplies Shiite militants with the weapon, which fires an armor-piercing, fist-sized copper slug.
The US welcomed al-Sadr's ceasefire declaration but has continued to target what it says are Iranian-backed breakaway factions of his Mehdi Army militia and appears to have escalated the campaign in recent weeks.
The military said US paratroopers conducting combat operations on Friday in the southern Shiite city of Hillah found a cache of weapons including 27 Iranian-made 107mm rockets and two launch systems, each capable of firing 20 rockets at once. The military has announced a series of such finds in recent days as it seeks to bolster its claim of Iranian support for rogue Shiite fighters. Tehran denies the allegations.
The US also said last week that US forces had killed at least 49 Shiite extremists in a ground and air assault in the militia stronghold of Sadr City. Witnesses and officials said 15 people were killed -- all civilians.
Al-Sadr nonetheless renewed his appeal to uphold the ceasefire and threatened to expel Mehdi Army members who do not, in what his office called a response to questions from supporters about whether the ceasefire still applied in the face of the US crackdown.
Al-Sadr aide Sheik Assad al-Nasseri said during a sermon in the mosque in Kufa, 160km south of Baghdad, that patience with the US operations was running out and the freeze could be lifted anytime.
Former Nicaraguan president Violeta Chamorro, who brought peace to Nicaragua after years of war and was the first woman elected president in the Americas, died on Saturday at the age of 95, her family said. Chamorro, who ruled the poor Central American country from 1990 to 1997, “died in peace, surrounded by the affection and love of her children,” said a statement issued by her four children. As president, Chamorro ended a civil war that had raged for much of the 1980s as US-backed rebels known as the “Contras” fought the leftist Sandinista government. That conflict made Nicaragua one of
COMPETITION: The US and Russia make up about 90 percent of the world stockpile and are adding new versions, while China’s nuclear force is steadily rising, SIPRI said Most of the world’s nuclear-armed states continued to modernize their arsenals last year, setting the stage for a new nuclear arms race, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) said yesterday. Nuclear powers including the US and Russia — which account for about 90 percent of the world’s stockpile — had spent time last year “upgrading existing weapons and adding newer versions,” researchers said. Since the end of the Cold War, old warheads have generally been dismantled quicker than new ones have been deployed, resulting in a decrease in the overall number of warheads. However, SIPRI said that the trend was likely
BOMBARDMENT: Moscow sent more than 440 drones and 32 missiles, Volodymyr Zelenskiy said, in ‘one of the most terrifying strikes’ on the capital in recent months A nighttime Russian missile and drone bombardment of Ukraine killed at least 15 people and injured 116 while they slept in their homes, local officials said yesterday, with the main barrage centering on the capital, Kyiv. Kyiv City Military Administration head Tymur Tkachenko said 14 people were killed and 99 were injured as explosions echoed across the city for hours during the night. The bombardment demolished a nine-story residential building, destroying dozens of apartments. Emergency workers were at the scene to rescue people from under the rubble. Russia flung more than 440 drones and 32 missiles at Ukraine, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is to visit Canada next week, his first since relations plummeted after the assassination of a Canadian Sikh separatist in Vancouver, triggering diplomatic expulsions and hitting trade. Analysts hope it is a step toward repairing ties that soured in 2023, after then-Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau pointed the finger at New Delhi’s involvement in murdering Hardeep Singh Nijjar, claims India furiously denied. An invitation extended by new Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney to Modi to attend the G7 leaders summit in Canada offers a chance to “reset” relations, former Indian diplomat Harsh Vardhan Shringla said. “This is a
RSS