Car bombs have killed more than 110 people, 25 of them children, in a surge of violence in Iraq ahead of an Oct. 15 referendum on a new constitution.
One of the four car bombs ripped through a crowded market in the southern town of Hilla, killing at least 12 people and wounding 47 yesterday, officials said.
The vehicle was parked when it detonated at about 9:30am in the city 95km south of Baghdad.
As Iraqi police and soldiers sealed off the Al-Sharia vegetable market, emergency workers lifted wounded victims and dead bodies into ambulances from streets covered with pools of blood and shattered vegetable stands.
In the mainly Shiite town of Balad, north of Baghdad, the death toll from three huge car bombs on Thursday rose to 98 yesterday, hospital director Kassim Aboud said.
At least 119 others were injured.
Apparently aimed at killing a large number of Shiite civilians, the string of bombings started just before sunset on Thursday when the first blast ripped through an open-air market crowded with people buying vegetables. The next bomb exploded at a bank just meters away, followed by a third on a nearby street of clothing shops.
Most of the fatalities were civilians, though the wounded included the police chief and four officers, said the director of Balad hospital.
Furious Balad residents blamed the attacks on "foreign fighters," long accused by the US military of infiltrating Iraq from Syria to carry out attacks across the country.
"What have those Jordanians and Palestinians and Saudis got to do with us? Shame on them!" said Abu Waleed, a hotel owner who said seven people staying in his hotel died in the blasts.
Five US soldiers were also killed in a bombing near Ramadi, the US Army said on Thursday.
Tropical Storm Usagi strengthened to a typhoon yesterday morning and remains on track to brush past southeastern Taiwan from tomorrow to Sunday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. As of 2pm yesterday, the storm was approximately 950km east-southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan proper’s southernmost point, the CWA said. It is expected to enter the Bashi Channel and then turn north, moving into waters southeast of Taiwan, it said. The agency said it could issue a sea warning in the early hours of today and a land warning in the afternoon. As of 2pm yesterday, the storm was moving at
DISCONTENT: The CCP finds positive content about the lives of the Chinese living in Taiwan threatening, as such video could upset people in China, an expert said Chinese spouses of Taiwanese who make videos about their lives in Taiwan have been facing online threats from people in China, a source said yesterday. Some young Chinese spouses of Taiwanese make videos about their lives in Taiwan, often speaking favorably about their living conditions in the nation compared with those in China, the source said. However, the videos have caught the attention of Chinese officials, causing the spouses to come under attack by Beijing’s cyberarmy, they said. “People have been messing with the YouTube channels of these Chinese spouses and have been harassing their family members back in China,”
UPDATED FORECAST: The warning covered areas of Pingtung County and Hengchun Peninsula, while a sea warning covering the southern Taiwan Strait was amended The Central Weather Administration (CWA) at 5:30pm yesterday issued a land warning for Typhoon Usagi as the storm approached Taiwan from the south after passing over the Philippines. As of 5pm, Usagi was 420km south-southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan proper’s southernmost tip, with an average radius of 150km, the CWA said. The land warning covered areas of Pingtung County and the Hengchun Peninsula (恆春), and came with an amended sea warning, updating a warning issued yesterday morning to cover the southern part of the Taiwan Strait. No local governments had announced any class or office closures as of press time last night. The typhoon
The Central Weather Administration (CWA) yesterday said there are four weather systems in the western Pacific, with one likely to strengthen into a tropical storm and pose a threat to Taiwan. The nascent tropical storm would be named Usagi and would be the fourth storm in the western Pacific at the moment, along with Typhoon Yinxing and tropical storms Toraji and Manyi, the CWA said. It would be the first time that four tropical cyclones exist simultaneously in November, it added. Records from the meteorology agency showed that three tropical cyclones existed concurrently in January in 1968, 1991 and 1992.
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