A car bomb exploded at a police station yesterday near a base in western Iraq used by US Marines, killing at least 10 Iraqi policemen and wounding 48 other people, officials said.
The explosion occurred outside the gates of Marine Camp Al Asad in Baghdadi, 230km west of Baghdad. The US military confirmed it was a suicide car bombing and said there were no Americans among the casualties. A hospital official in nearby Haditha said there were at least eight dead and 48 wounded.
The blast came hours after the US military arrested an aide to Jordanian terror mastermind Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and five others during raids on a safe house in the insurgent stronghold of Fallujah, officials said. The aide had risen to prominence in recent weeks as other al-Zarqawi staff had been killed, according to intelligence sources.
The 1:30am raid in southern Fallujah targeted a site being used as a safe haven by al-Zarqawi's inner circle, according to a military statement.
US forces have stepped up operations in Fallujah in a bid to root out al-Zarqawi's terror group, Tawhid and Jihad, which is believed to operate from there. The group has been blamed for numerous suicide bombings and beheadings of foreign hostages, including recent twin blasts inside Baghdad's Green Zone, which houses the US and Iraqi leadership.
Among the most shocking of the kidnappings was that of Margaret Hassan, an aid worker with joint British, Irish and Iraqi citizenship who has spent nearly half her life delivering food and medicine in Iraq. Hassan, who is married to an Iraqi, was seized on Tuesday in western Baghdad as she rode to work in her car.
On Friday, Hassan appeared in a wrenching televised statement, begging for her life and urging British Prime Minister Tony Blair to withdraw his country's troops.
The 59-year-old woman's statement puts new political pressure on Blair's government shortly after it agreed to a US request to transfer 850 British soldiers from southern Iraq to the Baghdad area to free up US forces for new offensives against insurgents.
"Please help me, please help me," said Hassan, who heads CARE International's operations in Iraq, in a grainy videotape broadcast by al-Jazeera TV. "This might be my last hours. Please help me. Please, the British people, ask Mr. Blair to take the troops out of Iraq, and not to bring them here to Baghdad."
Yesterday, CARE International secretary-general Denis Caillaux made an appeal on al-Jazeera to Hassan's kidnappers to release her.
In other developments yesterday, a roadside bomb detonated near a US military patrol along the highway leading to Baghdad Airport, wounding six soldiers, the US military said. A suicide driver also detonated a car bomb near an Iraqi National Guard checkpoint south of Samarra, killing four guardsmen and injuring six, police said.
TYPHOON: The storm’s path indicates a high possibility of Krathon making landfall in Pingtung County, depending on when the storm turns north, the CWA said Typhoon Krathon is strengthening and is more likely to make landfall in Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said in a forecast released yesterday afternoon. As of 2pm yesterday, the CWA’s updated sea warning for Krathon showed that the storm was about 430km southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan’s southernmost point. It was moving in west-northwest at 9kph, with maximum sustained winds of 119kph and gusts of up to 155kph, CWA data showed. Krathon is expected to move further west before turning north tomorrow, CWA forecaster Wu Wan-hua (伍婉華) said. The CWA’s latest forecast and other countries’ projections of the storm’s path indicate a higher
SLOW-MOVING STORM: The typhoon has started moving north, but at a very slow pace, adding uncertainty to the extent of its impact on the nation Work and classes have been canceled across the nation today because of Typhoon Krathon, with residents in the south advised to brace for winds that could reach force 17 on the Beaufort scale as the Central Weather Administration (CWA) forecast that the storm would make landfall there. Force 17 wind with speeds of 56.1 to 61.2 meters per second, the highest number on the Beaufort scale, rarely occur and could cause serious damage. Krathon could be the second typhoon to land in southwestern Taiwan, following typhoon Elsie in 1996, CWA records showed. As of 8pm yesterday, the typhoon’s center was 180km
TYPHOON DAY: Taitung, Pingtung, Tainan, Chiayi, Hualien and Kaohsiung canceled work and classes today. The storm is to start moving north this afternoon The outer rim of Typhoon Krathon made landfall in Taitung County and the Hengchun Peninsula (恆春半島) at about noon yesterday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said, adding that the eye of the storm was expected to hit land tomorrow. The CWA at 2:30pm yesterday issued a land alert for Krathon after issuing a sea alert on Sunday. It also expanded the scope of the sea alert to include waters north of Taiwan Strait, in addition to its south, from the Bashi Channel to the Pratas Islands (Dongsha Islands, 東沙群島). As of 6pm yesterday, the typhoon’s center was 160km south of
STILL DANGEROUS: The typhoon was expected to weaken, but it would still maintain its structure, with high winds and heavy rain, the weather agency said One person had died amid heavy winds and rain brought by Typhoon Krathon, while 70 were injured and two people were unaccounted for, the Central Emergency Operation Center said yesterday, while work and classes have been canceled nationwide today for the second day. The Hualien County Fire Department said that a man in his 70s had fallen to his death at about 11am on Tuesday while trimming a tree at his home in Shoufeng Township (壽豐). Meanwhile, the Yunlin County Fire Department received a report of a person falling into the sea at about 1pm on Tuesday, but had to suspend search-and-rescue
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