Government troops began house-to-house searches for al-Qaeda in Iraq militants in Mosul yesterday, part of a major security operation to cleanse Iraq’s third-largest city from cells of the terror network.
Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki flew to Mosul on Wednesday to take charge of the operation by US-backed Iraqi forces. Described by the US military as the last major urban base of al-Qaeda in Iraq, Mosul has become the site of al-Maliki’s third security drive in two months as he attempts to defeat Shiite militants and Sunni extremists.
Al-Qaeda, however, appears to be far from defeated.
In an attack that bore the group’s hallmarks, a suicide bomber on Wednesday blew himself up in a funeral tent in a village west of Baghdad, killing 22 people and wounding 40, police Colonel Faisal al-Zubaie said.
The funeral for Taha Obaid, a primary school principal killed the previous day by gunmen, was attended by local, US-backed Sunni tribesmen fighting al-Qaeda militants. It was not known how many of them were among the killed and wounded.
A three-year-old son of Obaid was among those killed, al-Zubaie said.
In Baghdad, a fragile ceasefire reached this week between Shiite politicians and followers of anti-American cleric Moqtada al-Sadr in the capital’s Sadr City district came under renewed strain yesterday.
Overnight and early morning clashes between US-backed Iraqi forces and militiamen loyal to al-Sadr left eight men killed and 19 wounded, officials from two hospitals in the Shiite enclave said.
The officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media, said the wounded included women and children.
Also in Baghdad yesterday, police officials said a roadside bomb struck the convoy of the capital’s Shiite governor, Hussein Tahan, as it made its way to pick him up from his home in the central Karradah district. One of his bodyguards was killed in the blast and six others — four other bodyguards and two bystanders — were wounded.
The blast took place at 8:30am in the central Nasr Square, said officials, who also spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
Armed with 4,000 eggs and a truckload of sugar and cream, French pastry chefs on Wednesday completed a 121.8m-long strawberry cake that they have claimed is the world’s longest ever made. Youssef El Gatou brought together 20 chefs to make the 1.2 tonne masterpiece that took a week to complete and was set out on tables in an ice rink in the Paris suburb town of Argenteuil for residents to inspect. The effort overtook a 100.48m-long strawberry cake made in the Italian town of San Mauro Torinese in 2019. El Gatou’s cake also used 350kg of strawberries, 150kg of sugar and 415kg of
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