Insurgents detonated a car bomb with two children in it after using the children as decoys to get through a military checkpoint in Baghdad, a US general said on Tuesday.
Speaking at a news briefing at the Pentagon, Major General Michael Barbaro, deputy director for regional operations at the Pentagon's Joint Staff, said US soldiers had stopped the car at the checkpoint but had allowed it to pass after seeing the two children in the back seat.
"Children in the back seat lower suspicion," he said, according to a transcript. "We let it move through. They parked the vehicle. The adults run out and detonate it with the children in back."
He offered no further details.
A top US military spokesman in Baghdad, said late on Tuesday that his office had no record of the bombing but was researching it.
"I don't know what event he's talking about," Lieutenant Colonel Christopher Garver said.
Agence France-Presse, quoting an unnamed US military official, said the incident occurred on Sunday. The bombers parked the vehicle across the street from a school, then ran away, leaving the children inside, the official told the news agency. The blast killed the two children and three other civilians and wounded seven, the official said.
The US command on Tuesday gave its account of a disputed raid on a Shiite mosque in Baghdad late on Monday that infuriated many in the Shiite community and led some to question their cooperation with the latest US-led security plan.
According to a US military statement, Iraqi soldiers stormed the mosque, in the mostly Shiite neighborhood of Kadhimiya in search of suspected militants, and about 50 people were temporarily detained during the raid.
Contrary to claims made by neighbors and Shiite community leaders, the US command said its soldiers had remained outside the building during the entire operation.
After the raid, US-Iraqi forces came under attack by about 20 gunmen firing rocket-propelled grenades and small arms, the statement said, adding that US troops returned fire, killing three people it described as insurgents.
Shiite community leaders and residents in the neighborhood of the raid gave a significantly different account. They said US forces had stormed not one but two mosques. As the soldiers entered one of the mosques they opened fire on worshippers who tried to flee, said Salah Abdul Qadir, spokesman for the Shiite Endowment, a government organization that supervises all Shiite mosques in Iraq.
also see story:
Violence marks anniversary of Iraq war
Former Nicaraguan president Violeta Chamorro, who brought peace to Nicaragua after years of war and was the first woman elected president in the Americas, died on Saturday at the age of 95, her family said. Chamorro, who ruled the poor Central American country from 1990 to 1997, “died in peace, surrounded by the affection and love of her children,” said a statement issued by her four children. As president, Chamorro ended a civil war that had raged for much of the 1980s as US-backed rebels known as the “Contras” fought the leftist Sandinista government. That conflict made Nicaragua one of
COMPETITION: The US and Russia make up about 90 percent of the world stockpile and are adding new versions, while China’s nuclear force is steadily rising, SIPRI said Most of the world’s nuclear-armed states continued to modernize their arsenals last year, setting the stage for a new nuclear arms race, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) said yesterday. Nuclear powers including the US and Russia — which account for about 90 percent of the world’s stockpile — had spent time last year “upgrading existing weapons and adding newer versions,” researchers said. Since the end of the Cold War, old warheads have generally been dismantled quicker than new ones have been deployed, resulting in a decrease in the overall number of warheads. However, SIPRI said that the trend was likely
BOMBARDMENT: Moscow sent more than 440 drones and 32 missiles, Volodymyr Zelenskiy said, in ‘one of the most terrifying strikes’ on the capital in recent months A nighttime Russian missile and drone bombardment of Ukraine killed at least 15 people and injured 116 while they slept in their homes, local officials said yesterday, with the main barrage centering on the capital, Kyiv. Kyiv City Military Administration head Tymur Tkachenko said 14 people were killed and 99 were injured as explosions echoed across the city for hours during the night. The bombardment demolished a nine-story residential building, destroying dozens of apartments. Emergency workers were at the scene to rescue people from under the rubble. Russia flung more than 440 drones and 32 missiles at Ukraine, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is to visit Canada next week, his first since relations plummeted after the assassination of a Canadian Sikh separatist in Vancouver, triggering diplomatic expulsions and hitting trade. Analysts hope it is a step toward repairing ties that soured in 2023, after then-Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau pointed the finger at New Delhi’s involvement in murdering Hardeep Singh Nijjar, claims India furiously denied. An invitation extended by new Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney to Modi to attend the G7 leaders summit in Canada offers a chance to “reset” relations, former Indian diplomat Harsh Vardhan Shringla said. “This is a
RSS