A US airstrike yesterday on a Fallujah neighborhood previously targeted by US forces destroyed a house and killed 14 people, hospital and local officials said.
Interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi's office said he had given the go-ahead for the attack. US officials declined to provide details of the strike.
The strike was the sixth on the city since June 19. In previous strikes, the US said it was targeting safehouses used by the network of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the Jordanian militant blamed for masterminding car bombings and other attacks in Iraq.
"The multinational force asked Prime Minister Allawi for permission to launch strikes on some specific places where some terrorists were hiding," an official in Allawi's office said yesterday on condition of anonymity. "Allawi gave his permission."
Explosions from the strike yesterday morning rocked the city. Dozens of people ran to the scene and dug through the wreck-age looking for survivors. One witness, who declined to give his name, said the house belonged to a "very poor family." Angry crowds gathered around the hit house, chanting "God is great."
The attack killed 14 people and injured three, according to Saad al-Amili, a Health Ministry official.
In their continuing effort to quash the insurgency, US forces said yesterday they had detained a senior commander of Saddam's elite Republican Guard, who was suspected of planning and financing attacks against Iraqis, Iraqi security forces and coalition troops.
Iraqi national guardsmen and coalition forces captured Sufyan Maher Hassan in a raid in Tikrit on Friday. He was being held at a local multinational force detention facility, said Major Neal O'Brien of the 1st Infantry Division.
Meanwhile, two car bombs targeting police exploded in the city of Tikrit yesterday morning, killing two police officers and wounding five others, Iraqi authorities said.
US President Donald Trump yesterday announced sweeping "reciprocal tariffs" on US trading partners, including a 32 percent tax on goods from Taiwan that is set to take effect on Wednesday. At a Rose Garden event, Trump declared a 10 percent baseline tax on imports from all countries, with the White House saying it would take effect on Saturday. Countries with larger trade surpluses with the US would face higher duties beginning on Wednesday, including Taiwan (32 percent), China (34 percent), Japan (24 percent), South Korea (25 percent), Vietnam (46 percent) and Thailand (36 percent). Canada and Mexico, the two largest US trading
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
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