Prisoners started a fire during a riot at Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison, US and Iraqi officials said, resulting in some injuries before wardens began evacuating the jail that became notorious for US detainee abuse.
Namir Mohammed, a local council member in western Baghdad’s Abu Ghraib district, said the inmates set fire to mattresses on Thursday following a search of the facility for mobile phones and banned drugs or medication.
Prison officials said inmates were unhappy about conditions at the jail, which became known across the world as a site of US soldiers’ abuse and sexual humiliation of Iraqi detainees after the ouster of Iraqi president Saddam Hussein in 2003.
“Today on orders from the government we started evacuating the prison to other jails inside Baghdad,” a prison warden who declined to be named said by telephone. “A government committee is handling evacuation. We don’t know where they went.”
He said that others were to be removed yesterday, but did not know if some would be left behind.
Pictures of abuse at Abu Ghraib sparked indignation worldwide and helped fuel a bloody insurgency in Iraq that has only begun to fade in the past 18 months.
The prison has since been taken over by Iraqi officials and was reopened in February with a new name. Iraqi officials plan to hold only a fraction of the tens of thousands of prisoners it housed under Saddam and promise improved conditions.
Deputy Iraqi Interior Minister Ahmed al-Khafaji said late on Thursday the fire had been brought under control. It had caused injuries among some prison staff but not the inmates, he said.
On Friday morning, a US military spokesman said inmates at Abu Ghraib had started a fire in their cell to try to overpower their guards. Three guards and three inmates were reportedly injured, he said. US aircraft backed Iraqi forces in responding to the incident.
Meanwhile, Gunmen drove two cars up to an Iraqi army checkpoint in northern Iraq and opened fire on Friday evening, killing five soldiers, police said.
The shooting took place just before Iraqis broke their Ramadan fast in the village of Safara, about 200km northwest of Baghdad.
Safara is just southwest of the disputed northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk, a volatile mix of ethnic Arabs, Kurds and Turkmen. The area around Kirkuk is amongst Iraq’s most dangerous.
Earlier in the day, militants in a speeding car opened fire on and wounded civilians in two different parts of Kirkuk.
The city lies at the heart of a feud between Baghdad’s Arab-led government and leaders of the largely autonomous Kurdistan region.
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, funeral home officials said. They were 62. The twins, listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins, died on April 7 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, obituaries posted by Leibensperger Funeral Homes of Hamburg said. The cause of death was not detailed. “When we were born, the doctors didn’t think we’d make 30, but we proved them wrong,” Lori said in an interview when they turned 50, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of
A prominent Christian leader has allegedly been stabbed at the altar during a Mass yesterday in southwest Sydney. Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel was saying Mass at Christ The Good Shepherd Church in Wakeley just after 7pm when a man approached him at the altar and allegedly stabbed toward his head multiple times. A live stream of the Mass shows the congregation swarm forward toward Emmanuel before it was cut off. The church leader gained prominence during the COVID-19 pandemic, amassing a large online following, Officers attached to Fairfield City police area command attended a location on Welcome Street, Wakeley following reports a number