Insurgents blew up an Iraqi train carrying petroleum products yesterday, setting off a huge blaze, as foreign governments angrily condemned the murder of two Algerian diplomats kidnapped last week in Baghdad.
Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari accused rebels of seeking to undermine diplomatic ties between the Arab world and Iraq, and signalled that US-led coalition forces would be called on to protect foreign diplomats in the capital.
The morning attack against the oil train was the first such in the country, railway spokesman Jawad Al-Kharsan said. The attack ignited a massive blaze extending down the railway line in southern Baghdad.
PHOTO: AFP
The seven-tanker convoy was approaching the Dura oil refinery, less than a kilometer away, when it was attacked.
An interior ministry official said the train struck a bomb on the line, but railway workers said the explosion could also have been caused by a rocket-propelled grenade.
There were no initial reports of casualties and the five-man train crew escaped unhurt, officials said.
In other violence, the US military said yesterday that two of its soldiers had been killed and one wounded in a bomb attack on Wednesday in north Baghdad.
Countries around the world condemned the murder of two Algerian diplomats, the charge d'affaires, Ali Belaroussi, 62, and attache Azzedine Belkadi, 47, claimed in an Internet statement by the rebel group al-Qaeda in Iraq.
Egypt, whose envoy to Baghdad was himself kidnapped and murdered earlier this month, also condemned the "atrocious" killing of Algerian diplomats.
In a statement on the Internet on Wednesday, the group controlled by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi said it had assassinated the diplomats because of Algeria's support for the US and failure to impelement Islamic Shariah law.
The Algerian government said a moment of silence would be observed across the country at midday yesterday in memory of the two murdered diplomats.
"I denounce the barbarous act which ended in the killing of the two diplomats by a fundamentalist terrorist group," Zebari told reporters yesterday.
"Their goal is to sever ties between Iraq and Arab and Muslim countries," he said, adding that "we shall avail ourselves of the presence of [US-led] coalition troops to offer diplomats better protection."
Meanwhile, the largest US labor federation, the AFL-CIO, meanwhile called for the rapid return of US troops from Iraq.
"An unending military presence will waste lives and resources, undermine our nation's security and weaken our military," the AFL-CIO stated in a resolution adopted at the federation's convention in Chicago.
The federation also blasted US President George W. Bush for misleading the US public about the war.
By 2027, Denmark would relocate its foreign convicts to a prison in Kosovo under a 200-million-euro (US$228.6 million) agreement that has raised concerns among non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and residents, but which could serve as a model for the rest of the EU. The agreement, reached in 2022 and ratified by Kosovar lawmakers last year, provides for the reception of up to 300 foreign prisoners sentenced in Denmark. They must not have been convicted of terrorism or war crimes, or have a mental condition or terminal disease. Once their sentence is completed in Kosovan, they would be deported to their home country. In
Brazil, the world’s largest Roman Catholic country, saw its Catholic population decline further in 2022, while evangelical Christians and those with no religion continued to rise, census data released on Friday by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) showed. The census indicated that Brazil had 100.2 million Roman Catholics in 2022, accounting for 56.7 percent of the population, down from 65.1 percent or 105.4 million recorded in the 2010 census. Meanwhile, the share of evangelical Christians rose to 26.9 percent last year, up from 21.6 percent in 2010, adding 12 million followers to reach 47.4 million — the highest figure
A Chinese scientist was arrested while arriving in the US at Detroit airport, the second case in days involving the alleged smuggling of biological material, authorities said on Monday. The scientist is accused of shipping biological material months ago to staff at a laboratory at the University of Michigan. The FBI, in a court filing, described it as material related to certain worms and requires a government permit. “The guidelines for importing biological materials into the US for research purposes are stringent, but clear, and actions like this undermine the legitimate work of other visiting scholars,” said John Nowak, who leads field
LOST CONTACT: The mission carried payloads from Japan, the US and Taiwan’s National Central University, including a deep space radiation probe, ispace said Japanese company ispace said its uncrewed moon lander likely crashed onto the moon’s surface during its lunar touchdown attempt yesterday, marking another failure two years after its unsuccessful inaugural mission. Tokyo-based ispace had hoped to join US firms Intuitive Machines and Firefly Aerospace as companies that have accomplished commercial landings amid a global race for the moon, which includes state-run missions from China and India. A successful mission would have made ispace the first company outside the US to achieve a moon landing. Resilience, ispace’s second lunar lander, could not decelerate fast enough as it approached the moon, and the company has