Two suicide car bombers struck within a minute of each other and just a kilometer apart in south Baghdad shortly before noon yesterday, killing at least seven policemen and raising the day's bombing death toll in the capital to at least 31, police said.
Earlier yesterday, the day's first suicide car bombing killed sixteen policemen and five civilians in the same neighborhood, signaling a new round of bomb violence one day after residents suffered Baghdad's bloodiest day of the war.
Three civilians were killed when a roadside bomb struck a Ministry of Industry bus in eastern Baghdad. Thirteen were injured in the attack, said police Lieutenant Colonel Ahmed Abbod.
PHOTO: AP
The US military and Iraqi police drove through Baghdad's Dora neighborhood, where the bombings were concentrated yesterday, warning residents to stay indoors because five more car bombers were said to be ready to attack, police Captain Ali Abdul Hamza said. Streets in the southern neighborhood were abandoned.
Al-Qaeda in Iraq said it launched the Wednesday attacks. There was no immediate claim for yesterday's bombings.
Al-Qaeda's leader in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, purportedly declared "all-out war" on Shiites, Iraqi troops and the government in an audiotape posted Wednesday on an Internet site known for carrying extremist Islamic content.
US forces and insurgents, meanwhile, reportedly clashed in the troubled western town of Ramadi, a militant stronghold on the main road to neighboring Jordan. A Web posting purportedly from al-Qaeda in Iraq said its forces had engaged the US military in the predominantly Sunni city of about 800,000.
On Wednesday, more than a dozen coordinated bombings ripped through Baghdad, killing 160 people and wounding 570. Many of the victims were day laborers lured by a suicide attacker posing as an employer.
In claiming it carried out the Wednesday attacks, al-Qaeda said it was taking retaliation for the rout of militants from their base in Tal Afar, the northern city near Syria.
The Thursday attacks in the capital began at 8am. Four hours later the twin bombing boomed out across Baghdad.
"There was just one minute and one kilometer between the two car bombs," said police Captain Firas Gaiti said. He said at least seven policemen died and 10 were wounded.
In the ethnically mixed city of Kirkuk, 290km north of Baghdad, insurgents detonated a roadside bomb next to a passing patrol, killing two police officers and wounding four, said Colonel Anwar Hassan.
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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