Some 30,000 Iraqi soldiers and police are to launch a military assault against al-Qaeda fighters and insurgents in Diyala Province from Aug. 1, army and police officers said yesterday.
“The operation is aimed at cleansing the region of insurgents, al-Qaeda and militias who are still there,” a senior Iraqi military officer said on condition of anonymity.
He said some 30,000 soldiers and policemen from across Iraq would take part in the crackdown starting Aug. 1.
Senior Iraqi police officials in Baqubah, the capital of Diyala, confirmed that starting date.
“It will be an operation led by the Iraqi army. The US Army will probably only watch ... If they need help, we’ll help them. If not, we will not do anything,” a US military officer said.
Iraq’s interior ministry spokesman Major General Abdul Karim Khalaf announced on July 13 that the Iraqi military would launch an assault in Diyala but did not specify the date.
He said troops expected tough fighting during the assault.
Diyala and its capital Baqubah are Iraq’s most dangerous regions with insurgents regularly carrying out attacks, including by female suicide bombers.
Meanwhile, Iraq’s parliament on Tuesday pushed through a law meant to pave the way for US-backed provincial elections that will redistribute regional power. But the measure was clouded by a Kurdish boycott and critics warned the vote was unlikely to be held this year.
It still needs to be approved by the three-member presidential council, which is led by Kurdish leader Jalal Talabani, adding significance to the Kurdish objections.
The Kurds, along with the two deputy parliamentary speakers, walked out of the chamber after lawmakers decided to hold a secret ballot on a power-sharing item in the law for the disputed, oil-rich city of Kirkuk.
Opposition to a proposed equal distribution of provincial council seats among Kurds, Turkomen and Arabs in the Kirkuk region — which is outside the Kurdish territory but considered by many Kurds to be part of their historical land — has been a major factor in stalling passage of the law.
It was the latest setback to efforts to hold provincial elections.
A preliminary elections law passed earlier this year was touted as a sign that Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s government was making progress on the political front in addition to security gains. But the Iraqis have been deadlocked over a law setting guidelines and allocating funding for the vote, which had been due to begin on Oct. 1.
The elections will choose governing councils in Iraq’s 18 provinces and are seen as a key step in repairing the country’s sectarian rifts.
Polish presidential candidates offered different visions of Poland and its relations with Ukraine in a televised debate ahead of next week’s run-off, which remains on a knife-edge. During a head-to-head debate lasting two hours, centrist Warsaw Mayor Rafal Trzaskowski, from Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s governing pro-European coalition, faced the Eurosceptic historian Karol Nawrocki, backed by the right-wing populist Law and Justice party (PiS). The two candidates, who qualified for the second round after coming in the top two places in the first vote on Sunday last week, clashed over Poland’s relations with Ukraine, EU policy and the track records of their
UNSCHEDULED VISIT: ‘It’s a very bulky new neighbor, but it will soon go away,’ said Johan Helberg of the 135m container ship that run aground near his house A man in Norway awoke early on Thursday to discover a huge container ship had run aground a stone’s throw from his fjord-side house — and he had slept through the commotion. For an as-yet unknown reason, the 135m NCL Salten sailed up onto shore just meters from Johan Helberg’s house in a fjord near Trondheim in central Norway. Helberg only discovered the unexpected visitor when a panicked neighbor who had rung his doorbell repeatedly to no avail gave up and called him on the phone. “The doorbell rang at a time of day when I don’t like to open,” Helberg told television
‘A THREAT’: Guyanese President Irfan Ali called on Venezuela to follow international court rulings over the region, whose border Guyana says was ratified back in 1899 Misael Zapara said he would vote in Venezuela’s first elections yesterday for the territory of Essequibo, despite living more than 100km away from the oil-rich Guyana-administered region. Both countries lay claim to Essequibo, which makes up two-thirds of Guyana’s territory and is home to 125,000 of its 800,000 citizens. Guyana has administered the region for decades. The centuries-old dispute has intensified since ExxonMobil discovered massive offshore oil deposits a decade ago, giving Guyana the largest crude oil reserves per capita in the world. Venezuela would elect a governor, eight National Assembly deputies and regional councilors in a newly created constituency for the 160,000
North Korea has detained another official over last week’s failed launch of a warship, which damaged the naval destroyer, state media reported yesterday. Pyongyang announced “a serious accident” at Wednesday last week’s launch ceremony, which crushed sections of the bottom of the new destroyer. North Korean leader Kim Jong-un called the mishap a “criminal act caused by absolute carelessness.” Ri Hyong-son, vice department director of the Munitions Industry Department of the Party Central Committee, was summoned and detained on Sunday, the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported. He was “greatly responsible for the occurrence of the serious accident,” it said. Ri is the fourth person
RSS