A series of bomb blasts rocked Baghdad yesterday as insurgents targeted a police checkpoint near the government compound, killing at least two people, fired mortar bombs into a park and attacked a US patrol.
The attacks came the day before the trial of former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein was due to resume and as political parties prepared for talks on forming a coalition government the US hopes will undermine support for a Sunni Arab insurgency.
A new judge will take charge temporarily of the tribunal trying Saddam and seven co-defendants in the 1982 massacre of more than 140 Shiite men from the town of Dujail, an Iraqi official said yesterday.
A Kurd, Raouf Rasheed Abdel-Rahman, will take charge of the trial that resumes today, replacing existing chief judge Rizgar Mohammed Amin, who submitted a letter of resignation on Jan. 15 amid complaints of government criticism in the trial, said Raid Juhi, the chief investigator who prepared evidence for the Dujail case.
Juhi said Iraqi authorities were unable to resolve the standoff with Amin, also a Kurd, whose resignation was the latest complication in the case which has already seen two defense lawyers assassinated and a judge step down.
Despite increased security throughout Baghdad, a suicide car bomber struck a checkpoint into the Green Zone, close to the Iranian embassy, which staff said was not damaged in the blast.
Television pictures showed a burnt-out police vehicle still smouldering and the twisted, wreckage of the bomber's car. A foot lay among the blast debris scattered in the street.
Police said two people were killed and six wounded -- three civilians and three policemen. Minutes later a roadside bomb exploded in the al-Waziriya area, wounding two people.
Several mortar bombs fell short of the Green Zone into a park that also houses Baghdad Zoo and an amusement park. Police said no one was injured.
A car bomb blast hit a joint US-Iraqi patrol in southern Baghdad, wounding two civilians, police said.
The Interior Ministry said a security clampdown in the capital was still in force amid fears that Sunni Arab rebels, angered by the results of a Dec. 15 election that confirmed the dominance of Shiite Islamists, would launch more attacks.
"We are expecting a rise in attacks by gunmen because of the results of the election," a ministry official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Political parties had until midnight last night to submit their complaints about the Dec. 15 election. The results were officially announced last week after allegations of electoral fraud had been investigated.
The Shiite United Iraqi Alliance led the field with 128 of 277 parliamentary seats, followed by the Kurdish Alliance with 53 seats and the Sunni National Accordance Front with 44.
Iraq's Electoral Commission will have 10 days to adjudicate on the complaints, but President Jalal Talabani said the victorious factions will begin talks on forming a new government today.
He said that no time limit had been imposed: "There is no time ceiling to form an Iraqi government. Enough time should be given for talks with the objective of letting all parties participate in the forthcoming government."
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
THUGGISH BEHAVIOR: Encouraging people to report independence supporters is another intimidation tactic that threatens cross-strait peace, the state department said China setting up an online system for reporting “Taiwanese independence” advocates is an “irresponsible and reprehensible” act, a US government spokesperson said on Friday. “China’s call for private individuals to report on alleged ‘persecution or suppression’ by supposed ‘Taiwan independence henchmen and accomplices’ is irresponsible and reprehensible,” an unnamed US Department of State spokesperson told the Central News Agency in an e-mail. The move is part of Beijing’s “intimidation campaign” against Taiwan and its supporters, and is “threatening free speech around the world, destabilizing the Indo-Pacific region, and deliberately eroding the cross-strait status quo,” the spokesperson said. The Chinese Communist Party’s “threats
RSS