Shiite militants and US forces battled yesterday in the Baghdad slum of Sadr City and a mortar barrage slammed into a busy eastern Baghdad neighborhood in a new round of violence in the capital that left five people dead and dozens wounded, officials said.
The violence came as war-weary Iraqis in the holy city of Najaf returned to their devastated offices and shops after three weeks of clashes there ended with a peace agreement.
PHOTO: EPA
Dozens of municipal workers were out for the first time in weeks, sweeping debris off roads lined with battle-scarred buildings, ripped up by US bombs.
Calm settled over the city a day after militants loyal to rebel Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr filed out of the revered Imam Ali Shrine and turned over the keys to Iraq's top Shiite cleric, symbolizing their acceptance of a peace deal to end the fighting against a combined US-Iraqi force.
But violence flared in Sadr City, an al-Sadr stronghold in Baghdad, between militants and US forces.
US soldiers in Humvees drove through the impoverished neighborhood with loudspeakers, demanding people stay home because coalition forces were "cleaning the area of armed men," according to an Associated Press reporter at the scene. Sporadic gunfire could be heard.
Saad al-Amili, a Health Ministry official, said three people were killed and 25 were wounded in the skirmishes.
Militants fired assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenades at US troops patrolling the area, said US Captain Brian O'Malley of the 1st Brigade Combat Team, adding that US forces suffered no casualties.
As the battles raged, insurgents fired a round of mortars into an eastern Baghdad neighborhood, killing two boys washing cars in a street near the former Iraqi National Olympic Committee building, said the Interior Ministry spokesman, Colonel Adnan Abdul-Rahman.
A Chinese freighter that allegedly snapped an undersea cable linking Taiwan proper to Penghu County is suspected of being owned by a Chinese state-run company and had docked at the ports of Kaohsiung and Keelung for three months using different names. On Tuesday last week, the Togo-flagged freighter Hong Tai 58 (宏泰58號) and its Chinese crew were detained after the Taipei-Penghu No. 3 submarine cable was severed. When the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) first attempted to detain the ship on grounds of possible sabotage, its crew said the ship’s name was Hong Tai 168, although the Automatic Identification System (AIS)
An Akizuki-class destroyer last month made the first-ever solo transit of a Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force ship through the Taiwan Strait, Japanese government officials with knowledge of the matter said yesterday. The JS Akizuki carried out a north-to-south transit through the Taiwan Strait on Feb. 5 as it sailed to the South China Sea to participate in a joint exercise with US, Australian and Philippine forces that day. The Japanese destroyer JS Sazanami in September last year made the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force’s first-ever transit through the Taiwan Strait, but it was joined by vessels from New Zealand and Australia,
CHANGE OF MIND: The Chinese crew at first showed a willingness to cooperate, but later regretted that when the ship arrived at the port and refused to enter Togolese Republic-registered Chinese freighter Hong Tai (宏泰號) and its crew have been detained on suspicion of deliberately damaging a submarine cable connecting Taiwan proper and Penghu County, the Coast Guard Administration said in a statement yesterday. The case would be subject to a “national security-level investigation” by the Tainan District Prosecutors’ Office, it added. The administration said that it had been monitoring the ship since 7:10pm on Saturday when it appeared to be loitering in waters about 6 nautical miles (11km) northwest of Tainan’s Chiang Chun Fishing Port, adding that the ship’s location was about 0.5 nautical miles north of the No.
SECURITY: The purpose for giving Hong Kong and Macau residents more lenient paths to permanent residency no longer applies due to China’s policies, a source said The government is considering removing an optional path to citizenship for residents from Hong Kong and Macau, and lengthening the terms for permanent residence eligibility, a source said yesterday. In a bid to prevent the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) from infiltrating Taiwan through immigration from Hong Kong and Macau, the government could amend immigration laws for residents of the territories who currently receive preferential treatment, an official familiar with the matter speaking on condition of anonymity said. The move was part of “national security-related legislative reform,” they added. Under the amendments, arrivals from the Chinese territories would have to reside in Taiwan for
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