Iraq's government will create a new security service specifically geared toward tackling the nearly 15-month-old insurgency in the country, Interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi said yesterday.
The new service, the General Security Directorate, "will annihilate those terrorist groups, God willing," Allawi said during a news conference.
Attackers detonated a car bomb near police and government buildings yesterday in the western city of Haditha, killing 10 Iraqis, including three police officers, in the latest in a series of insurgent attacks on Iraqi authorities.
Police apparently thwarted a second attack in Karbala, where officers chased a car after receiving a tip it was filled with explosives. The two people inside detonated their bomb, killing only themselves and causing no other casualties.
The violence came after a suicide attacker in Baghdad killed at least 10 people in a car bombing near Iraqi government headquarters and insurgents assassinated a provincial governor in an ambush of his convoy.
The attack in Haditha, known as a stronghold of former president Saddam Hussein's ousted regime, hit a government complex that houses the police station, civil defense headquarters and the municipal building. In addition to the 10 killed, the blast injured 27 people, said Colonel Adnan Abdel-Rahman, spokesman for the Interior Ministry.
Insurgents detonated a massive car bomb on Wednesday at a checkpoint just outside the so-called Green Zone, former home to the US occupation government and currently home to the Iraqi interim government and the US and British embassies. The blast ripped a deep crater in the road and killed 10 Iraqis, many as they waited in line to apply for jobs with the government, the Health Ministry said. The US military said 11 were killed.
Hours later, insurgents tossed hand grenades and fired machine guns at a convoy transporting Nineveh Governor Osama Youssef Kashmoula, killing him and two of his guards, Iraqi and US military officials said. Mosul is the largest city in Nineveh province.
Kashmoula was attacked between the cities of Beiji and Tikrit north of Baghdad as he traveled to the capital, the US military said. Four of the attackers were killed in the fight, Mosul officials said.
In the attack just outside Karbala yesterday, police chased down insurgents after getting a tip they had a car bomb, said Rahman Mshawi, a spokesman for the Karbala police.
"Finding themselves surrounded, the two persons inside detonated the car," Mshawi said.
In a separate attack early yesterday, a rocket landed on a home in the oil-rich city of Kirkuk, killing four people and injuring three others, police and hospital officials said.
A second rocket struck a home in a former army base now used by Kurdish refugees, injuring four people. The targets of the attacks were not immediately clear. Also yesterday, saboteurs damaged oil pipelines at separate sites in Iraq's north and south while insurgents gunned down an officer with the state-run oil company.
‘CORRECT IDENTIFICATION’: Beginning in May, Taiwanese married to Japanese can register their home country as Taiwan in their spouse’s family record, ‘Nikkei Asia’ said The government yesterday thanked Japan for revising rules that would allow Taiwanese nationals married to Japanese citizens to list their home country as “Taiwan” in the official family record database. At present, Taiwanese have to select “China.” Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) said the new rule, set to be implemented in May, would now “correctly” identify Taiwanese in Japan and help protect their rights, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement. The statement was released after Nikkei Asia reported the new policy earlier yesterday. The name and nationality of a non-Japanese person marrying a Japanese national is added to the
AT RISK: The council reiterated that people should seriously consider the necessity of visiting China, after Beijing passed 22 guidelines to punish ‘die-hard’ separatists The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) has since Jan. 1 last year received 65 petitions regarding Taiwanese who were interrogated or detained in China, MAC Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said yesterday. Fifty-two either went missing or had their personal freedoms restricted, with some put in criminal detention, while 13 were interrogated and temporarily detained, he said in a radio interview. On June 21 last year, China announced 22 guidelines to punish “die-hard Taiwanese independence separatists,” allowing Chinese courts to try people in absentia. The guidelines are uncivilized and inhumane, allowing Beijing to seize assets and issue the death penalty, with no regard for potential
‘UNITED FRONT’ FRONTS: Barring contact with Huaqiao and Jinan universities is needed to stop China targeting Taiwanese students, the education minister said Taiwan has blacklisted two Chinese universities from conducting academic exchange programs in the nation after reports that the institutes are arms of Beijing’s United Front Work Department, Minister of Education Cheng Ying-yao (鄭英耀) said in an exclusive interview with the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister paper) published yesterday. China’s Huaqiao University in Xiamen and Quanzhou, as well as Jinan University in Guangzhou, which have 600 and 1,500 Taiwanese on their rolls respectively, are under direct control of the Chinese government’s political warfare branch, Cheng said, citing reports by national security officials. A comprehensive ban on Taiwanese institutions collaborating or
STILL COMMITTED: The US opposes any forced change to the ‘status quo’ in the Strait, but also does not seek conflict, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said US President Donald Trump’s administration released US$5.3 billion in previously frozen foreign aid, including US$870 million in security exemptions for programs in Taiwan, a list of exemptions reviewed by Reuters showed. Trump ordered a 90-day pause on foreign aid shortly after taking office on Jan. 20, halting funding for everything from programs that fight starvation and deadly diseases to providing shelters for millions of displaced people across the globe. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who has said that all foreign assistance must align with Trump’s “America First” priorities, issued waivers late last month on military aid to Israel and Egypt, the
RSS