A car bomb ripped through a police station south of Baghdad yesterday killing about 50 people, in the latest attack on Iraqis seen as collaborators with US occupation forces.
The bombing came after US officials said an Islamic militant with links to Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network was plotting to ignite a civil war in Iraq to undermine efforts to hand over power to Iraqis.
A reporter said he had counted at least 20 bodies outside a hospital in the small town of Iskandariya, 40km south of Baghdad. But the director of the local hospital said the explosion killed around 50 people.
PHOTO: REUTERS
"There are around 50 martyrs, 30 of whom have been identified, and dozens wounded," Dr. Tahsim Ahmad said at Iskandariya hospital, near the site of the attack.
The hospital's director, Razak Jannabi, said: "Thirty dead have been brought here, I believe that number is rising. I believe it's at 49."
Earlier yesterday, a suicide bomber blew himself up outside the house of Amer Suleiman, chief of the al-Duleimi tribe in the area and head of the local US-appointed authority in the restive town of Ramadi, 110km west of the capital, wounding four bodyguards.
The attacks followed a pattern of targeting Iraqis seen as collaborators with the US occupation. Twin suicide bombings in northern Iraq against two Kurdish parties allied with the US killed more than 100 people on Feb. 1.
Ramadi and surrounding areas, at the heart of the so-called Sunni triangle where resentment of the US is strongest, have seen scores of attacks on US forces.
US troops said on Monday they had seized a computer disc containing a letter from Abu Musab Zarqawi, who Washington links to Ansar al-Islam, outlining plans to destabilize Iraq.
The US says the group, which operates in northern Iraq, is affiliated to al-Qaeda.
"There is clearly a plan on the part of outsiders to come into this country and spark civil war, breed sectarian violence and try to expose fissures in the society," said Brigadier-General Mark Kimmitt, the top US military spokesman in Iraq.
Dan Senor, chief spokesman for Iraq's US governor, Paul Bremer, said the 17-page letter proposed attacks on shrines and leaders of Iraq's Shiite Muslim majority, whom Arab Sunnis and Kurds fear could dominate a future government.
In Washington, Secretary of State Colin Powell said the letter showed al-Qaeda was under pressure but had not given up.
"With respect to the letter itself, it's very revealing. They describe the weaknesses they have in their efforts to undercut the coalition's effort," Powell said.
Iraq's US occupiers have long said they suspect al-Qaeda has played a role in the insurgency against US troops and particularly in attacks on civilian targets in Iraq.
In New York, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan spoke to Security Council members about the electoral team he sent to Baghdad on Saturday to see whether elections could be held quickly, as Shiites want, or recommend alternatives for selecting Iraqi leaders before the US relinquishes power on June 30.
"I am concerned that there is no consensus yet on the best way to handle the transition," Annan said, according to his speaking notes. "Many Iraqis have been calling for elections before June 30. Others disagree and prefer other options for choosing the members of Iraq transitional institutions."
He told reporters the team, led by veteran UN official Lakhdar Brahimi, a former Algerian foreign minister, had met members of the coalition and a variety of Iraqis.
Annan said the team would soon meet Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the most revered cleric among Iraq's Shiites, who make up 60 percent of the population.
AIR SUPPORT: The Ministry of National Defense thanked the US for the delivery, adding that it was an indicator of the White House’s commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) and Representative to the US Alexander Yui on Friday attended a delivery ceremony for the first of Taiwan’s long-awaited 66 F-16C/D Block 70 jets at a Lockheed Martin Corp factory in Greenville, South Carolina. “We are so proud to be the global home of the F-16 and to support Taiwan’s air defense capabilities,” US Representative William Timmons wrote on X, alongside a photograph of Taiwanese and US officials at the event. The F-16C/D Block 70 jets Taiwan ordered have the same capabilities as aircraft that had been upgraded to F-16Vs. The batch of Lockheed Martin
GRIDLOCK: The National Fire Agency’s Special Search and Rescue team is on standby to travel to the countries to help out with the rescue effort A powerful earthquake rocked Myanmar and neighboring Thailand yesterday, killing at least three people in Bangkok and burying dozens when a high-rise building under construction collapsed. Footage shared on social media from Myanmar’s second-largest city showed widespread destruction, raising fears that many were trapped under the rubble or killed. The magnitude 7.7 earthquake, with an epicenter near Mandalay in Myanmar, struck at midday and was followed by a strong magnitude 6.4 aftershock. The extent of death, injury and destruction — especially in Myanmar, which is embroiled in a civil war and where information is tightly controlled at the best of times —
China's military today said it began joint army, navy and rocket force exercises around Taiwan to "serve as a stern warning and powerful deterrent against Taiwanese independence," calling President William Lai (賴清德) a "parasite." The exercises come after Lai called Beijing a "foreign hostile force" last month. More than 10 Chinese military ships approached close to Taiwan's 24 nautical mile (44.4km) contiguous zone this morning and Taiwan sent its own warships to respond, two senior Taiwanese officials said. Taiwan has not yet detected any live fire by the Chinese military so far, one of the officials said. The drills took place after US Secretary
THUGGISH BEHAVIOR: Encouraging people to report independence supporters is another intimidation tactic that threatens cross-strait peace, the state department said China setting up an online system for reporting “Taiwanese independence” advocates is an “irresponsible and reprehensible” act, a US government spokesperson said on Friday. “China’s call for private individuals to report on alleged ‘persecution or suppression’ by supposed ‘Taiwan independence henchmen and accomplices’ is irresponsible and reprehensible,” an unnamed US Department of State spokesperson told the Central News Agency in an e-mail. The move is part of Beijing’s “intimidation campaign” against Taiwan and its supporters, and is “threatening free speech around the world, destabilizing the Indo-Pacific region, and deliberately eroding the cross-strait status quo,” the spokesperson said. The Chinese Communist Party’s “threats
RSS