A series of bomb attacks in Baghdad early yesterday killed 12 people and wounded at least 31, government sources said.
In the deadliest attack a small truck parked near the passport office on Magreb Street in the north of the city killed 12 and wounded 20, defense and interior ministry sources said.
Several people suffered burns as flames from the powerful blast swept skywards, damaging buildings, they said.
Meanwhile, on Palestine Street in the center of the Iraqi capital, a roadside bomb wounded nine including six civilians as a police patrol passed.
A third attack thought to have targeted government vehicles wounded two civilians in the southeastern neighborhood of al-Ghadir.
The rush hour strikes were the first attacks in the city since last Monday when three suicide bombers believed to be women blew themselves up among the pilgrims in the capital, killing at least 25 and wounding around 75.
The attacks came as Iraqi lawmakers held intense, last-minute negotiations ahead of a special parliamentary session aimed at defusing a crisis over Kurdish demands to incorporate the disputed city of Kirkuk and surrounding areas into their autonomous region.
Parliament adjourned for a one-month summer recess last week but agreed to hold a special session Sunday to try to resolve the standoff and approve a new election bill.
Underscoring the importance of the Kirkuk issue, US President George W. Bush telephoned the Sunni parliamentary speaker Mahmoud al-Mashhadani and Shiite Vice President Adel Abdul-Mahdi to urge a resolution, according to statements yesterday from their offices.
Thousands of people staged a noisy rally in Iraq’s northern city of Hawija on Saturday to protest against fresh moves to incorporate Kirkuk Province into the autonomous Kurdish region.
Kirkuk has been gripped by ethnic tension since the US-led invasion of 2003, with Arab and Turkmen residents fearful they would be marginalized if the city were handed over to the Kurds.
A suicide bombing and ensuing panic gunfire killed at least 27 people and wounded 126 last Monday during a mainly Kurdish rally protesting against the provincial election law that promises to tackle these concerns.
The US military in Iraq said yesterday that one of its soldiers died in a road accident north of Baghdad — the first troop fatality this month — while two other soldiers were charged with the murder of an Iraqi detainee.
The military said in a statement that the vehicle accident on Saturday, which left another US soldier injured, was under investigation.
The fatality brings to 4,128 the number of US soldiers killed in Iraq since the invasion in March 2003.
US SOLDIERS CHARGED
In other developments, the US military said that Staff Sergeant Hal Warner and 1st Lieutenant Michael Behenna were charged on Saturday with premeditated murder, assault, making a false official statement and obstruction of justice.
“The charges followed a criminal investigation into the death of Ali Mansur Mohammed, a detainee initially believed to have been released by coalition forces on or about May 16,” the statement said.
A pretrial investigation for Warner is to start on Aug. 15 at a base near Tikrit while the date for Behenna’s pretrial investigation has not yet been set.
In other developments, US troops transferred security responsibilities in the southern Baladruz area of Diyala Province on Saturday, a military statement said.
“The Iraqis are ready to take over this area. Our people are ready to come back to their homes and support the coalition and Iraqi forces,” Baladruz police chief Colonel Faris Radi said.
The Diyala Province, stretching from the eastern outskirts of Baghdad to the Iranian border, has been the scene of a major military crackdown against Sunni insurgents.
Renegade groups from the Mehdi Army militia of radical Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr are also active in the province, which has a mixed population of Sunni and Shiite Arabs as well as Kurds and other ethnic minorities.
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
RSS