A suicide car bomber killed up to 12 Iraqis, including four policemen, near a US-Iraqi base in Baghdad yesterday and gunmen killed a senior Iraqi civil servant in the second such murder in as many days.
The US-led administration has said insurgents may step up attacks before and after the occupation formally ends on June 30 to disrupt the handover and discredit Iraq's new government.
While the new bloodshed seemed to bear out that prediction, two foreign hostages, a Turk and an Egyptian, were freed after what a mediator called talks with men close to their captors.
Police at the scene of the car bombing said their colleagues had tried to stop a suspicious vehicle hurtling toward an Iraqi military college in southeast Baghdad, where many US soldiers are also based.
Abdul Razzak Kadhem, a senior police officer, said two police cars had intercepted the vehicle, which then exploded, destroying one police car and badly damaging another.
The US military, condemning what it called a "random, senseless act of violence," said the blast had killed eight Iraqi civilians and four police, and wounded 13 people.
Kadhem said earlier four policemen and two civilians had died. Four policemen were wounded.
Two charred bodies could be seen in the burnt wreckage of one police car. All that remained of the bomber's car was a blackened engine in the road. Several civilian vehicles were damaged. Blood stained the driver's seat of a white pick-up.
"One car was blown across the street," said Abdel Hasan al-Jabbar, an off-duty civil-defense worker. "The man inside had blood pouring from the top of his head."
Guerrillas frequently target police and other Iraqis whom they accuse of collaborating with the US-led occupation.
The Iraqi civil servant, Kamal al-Jarrah, 63, who headed the education ministry's cultural relations department, was shot in his garden after stepping out of his house in the western Ghazaliya district of the capital to go to work.
The veteran bureaucrat died in hospital, Abdul Khaliq al-Amiri, secretary to the education minister, said. Jarrah's wife, who was with him in the garden, was unhurt.
In a similarly precise attack on Saturday, gunmen in a car killed Bassam Qubba, the foreign ministry's undersecretary for multinational affairs and international organizations.
Last month, a suicide bombing killed Izzedin Salim, the head of Iraq's now-dissolved Governing Council, and another council member survived an ambush south of the capital.
The Foreign Ministry said Qubba's killing bore "the hallmarks of leftover supporters of Saddam Hussein's evil regime." Foreign Minister Hoshiyar Zebari said the interim government "will not be scared or intimidated by Saddamists."
DETERRENCE: With 1,000 indigenous Hsiung Feng II and III missiles and 400 Harpoon missiles, the nation would boast the highest anti-ship missile density in the world With Taiwan wrapping up mass production of Hsiung Feng II and III missiles by December and an influx of Harpoon missiles from the US, Taiwan would have the highest density of anti-ship missiles in the world, a source said yesterday. Taiwan is to wrap up mass production of the indigenous anti-ship missiles by the end of year, as the Chungshan Institute of Science and Technology has been meeting production targets ahead of schedule, a defense official with knowledge of the matter said. Combined with the 400 Harpoon anti-ship missiles Taiwan expects to receive from the US by 2028, the nation would have
North Korea yesterday fired about 10 ballistic missiles to the sea toward Japan, the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said, days after Pyongyang warned of “terrible consequences” over ongoing South Korea-US military drills. Pyongyang recently dashed hopes of a diplomatic thaw with Seoul, Washington’s security ally, describing its latest peace efforts as a “clumsy, deceptive farce.” Seoul’s military detected “around 10 ballistic missiles launched from the Sunan area in North Korea toward the East Sea [Sea of Japan] at around 1:20pm,” JCS said in a statement, referring to South Korea’s name for the body of water. The missiles
‘UNWAVERING FRIENDSHIP’: A representative of a Japanese group that co-organized a memorial, said he hopes Japanese never forget Taiwan’s kindness President William Lai (賴清德) yesterday marked the 15th anniversary of the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami, urging continued cooperation between Taiwan and Japan on disaster prevention and humanitarian assistance. Lai wrote on social media that Taiwan and Japan have always helped each other in the aftermath of major disasters. The magnitude 9 earthquake struck northeastern Japan on March 11, 2011, triggering a massive tsunami that claimed more than 19,000 lives, according to data from Japanese authorities. Following the disaster, Taiwan donated more than US$240 million in aid, making it one of the largest contributors of financial assistance to Japan. In addition to cash donations and
CLOSER TO CHINA: The upgraded Type-12 missile has a range of about 1,000km, compared with the original model’s range of 200km, and can reach mainland China Japan is preparing to deploy its first batch of domestically developed long-range missiles, with their launchers arriving at an army camp yesterday, as the country accelerates its offensive capability in response to rising challenges in the region. The upgraded Type-12 land-to-ship missiles are to be deployed at Camp Kengun in Japan’s southwestern prefecture of Kumamoto by the end of this month, completing the process of deployment, Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Minoru Kihara said without giving details. Army vehicles carrying the launchers and other equipment arrived past midnight in a highly secretive mission criticized by residents. Dozens of people stood outside of the
RSS