Mourners fired guns in the air to show their grief yesterday at the funeral of a US-allied Sunni leader killed by a suicide bomber in Baghdad.
Iraqi officials raised the death toll from Sunday night’s attack to 10.
At least 20 people also were wounded, the officials said, declining to be identified because they weren’t authorized to release the information. The US military put the toll at eight dead, including six US-allied fighters, and 12 wounded.
The blast raised special concern because it occurred in the heart of the northern Baghdad neighborhood of Azamiyah, a former insurgent stronghold that has been surrounded by a concrete wall in a bid by the US military to stop violence.
The apparent target of the attack was Farooq al-Obeidi, deputy leader of the local awakening council, a group paid by the US to fight al-Qaeda in Iraq.
The attacker had disguised himself in a black Islamic robe traditionally worn by women, officials and witnesses said.
He was sitting on a bench near a fountain next to the Sunni area’s revered Abu Hanifa mosque, watching al-Obeidi and his guards near a checkpoint, another member of the group said.
The bomber approached the checkpoint where council members were chatting, then detonated his explosives when a guard became suspicious and tried to push him away, said a witness who spoke on condition of anonymity because of security concerns.
Such attacks have become rare in the center of Azamiyah since the US military built a concrete wall around the heart of the north Baghdad neighborhood, where Saddam Hussein took refuge when the city fell to US forces in April 2003.
Although Azamiyah was once a center of resistance to the US and its Shiite allies, many local Sunnis later abandoned the insurgency and joined the awakening council, which provides security there alongside Iraqi soldiers and police.
Al-Qaeda in Iraq has often targeted leaders of awakening councils. But Khalil Ibrahim, an aide to al-Obeidi, said the attack could have been carried out by rivals within the council itself.
“We had received information that we would be targeted by groups within Azamiyah and within the awakening movement itself,” he said, refusing to elaborate.
Meanwhile, a roadside bomb wounded five people, including three policemen, when it exploded in the Mansour district of western Baghdad, police said.
In a separate attack, another roadside bomb wounded nine people, including three policemen, when it exploded near a US military patrol in the Yarmouk district.
Gunmen killed one man and wounded his wife when they opened fire on the couple’s car in the Zaafaraniya district of southeastern Baghdad, police said.
In other developments, US forces detained 11 militants on Sunday and yesterday during operations targeting al-Qaeda in central and northern Iraq, the US military said.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not