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.
CSBC Corp, Taiwan (台灣國際造船) yesterday released the first video documenting the submerged sea trials of Taiwan’s indigenous defense submarine prototype, the Hai Kun (海鯤), or Narwhal, showing underwater navigation and the launch of countermeasures. The footage shows the vessel’s first dive, steering and control system tests, and the raising and lowering of the periscope and antenna masts. It offered a rare look at the progress in the submarine’s sea acceptance tests. The Hai Kun carried out its first shallow-water diving trial late last month and has since completed four submerged tests, CSBC said. The newly released video compiles images recorded from Jan. 29 to
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) plans to make advanced 3-nanometer chips in Japan, stepping up its semiconductor manufacturing roadmap in the country in a triumph for Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s technology ambitions. TSMC is to adopt cutting-edge technology for its second wafer fab in Kumamoto, company chairman C.C. Wei (魏哲家) said yesterday. That is an upgrade from an original blueprint to produce 7-nanometer chips by late next year, people familiar with the matter said. TSMC began mass production at its first plant in Japan’s Kumamoto in late 2024. Its second fab, which is still under construction, was originally focused on
DETERRENCE EFFORTS: Washington and partners hope demonstrations of force would convince Beijing that military action against Taiwan would carry high costs The US is considering using HMAS Stirling in Western Australia as a forward base to strengthen its naval posture in a potential conflict with China, particularly over Taiwan, the Wall Street Journal reported on Saturday. As part of its Indo-Pacific strategy, Washington plans to deploy up to four nuclear-powered submarines at Stirling starting in 2027, providing a base near potential hot spots such as Taiwan and the South China Sea. The move also aims to enhance military integration with Pacific allies under the Australia-UK-US trilateral security partnership, the report said. Currently, US submarines operate from Guam, but the island could
EMERGING FIELDS: The Chinese president said that the two countries would explore cooperation in green technology, the digital economy and artificial intelligence Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) yesterday called for an “equal and orderly multipolar world” in the face of “unilateral bullying,” in an apparent jab at the US. Xi was speaking during talks in Beijing with Uruguayan President Yamandu Orsi, the first South American leader to visit China since US special forces captured then-Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro last month — an operation that Beijing condemned as a violation of sovereignty. Orsi follows a slew of leaders to have visited China seeking to boost ties with the world’s second-largest economy to hedge against US President Donald Trump’s increasingly unpredictable administration. “The international situation is fraught
RSS