Intense house-to-house fighting between insurgents and Iraqi police north of Baghdad killed 43 people, including 24 officers, the US military said yesterday. US troops later joined the fight, aiding in a counterattack that left 18 insurgents dead, the military said.
An unknown number of "anti-Iraqi forces" ambushed a police unit based in Baquba, 60km northeast of Baghdad, at about 6:30am on Thursday the military said, using its standard term for Sunni insurgents.
Police fought back and US troops nearby were diverted from another mission, assisted by air cover. One Iraqi civilian was also killed, eight insurgents wounded, and 27 others captured, the military said.
The attack marked some of the heaviest fighting in recent days between insurgents and Iraqi security forces, who US commanders have been pressing to take over more responsibility for security, thereby allowing them to begin contemplating US troop withdrawals.
With rising US casualties adding to growing anti-war sentiment, US leaders are eager to show that the Iraqi forces are rising to the challenge by controlling territory and inflicting casualties on their enemies.
Iraq's Interior Ministry, which commands the police, gave a slightly different version of the clash and said those killed included Khan Bani Saad's police chief, Brigadier Abbas al-Ameri, and his brother.
A ministry spokesman, Brigadier Abdel-Karim Khalaf, said forces moved into the area after learning of the presence of insurgents who were behind the ambush on Monday of a convoy of buses carrying police recruits in which at least 15 were killed and 25 wounded.
"After we received information that these criminals had a presence ... we mobilized our forces and attacked the area," Khalf said. "We cannot tolerate this and that is the reason why we took action yesterday," he said.
Khalf denied police had been surprised and put the death toll among officers at 12, with 19 insurgents killed and 28 captured. He described the enemy fighters as hardcore remnants of former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein's Baathist regime joined by "Takfiri elements," a term for Islamic radicals that include groups such as al-Qaeda in Iraq.
US troop deaths hit their highest monthly total in a year on Thursday with the announcement of five more deaths, a Navy sailor and four Marines. All were killed on Wednesday in volatile Anbar Province, west of Baghdad, where Sunni insurgents have inflicted fully more than one-third of the 2,809 US military deaths since the March, 2003, invasion of Iraq.
At least 96 US troops have died so far this month, equaling the level for the whole of October last year -- a factor in growing calls for US President George W. Bush to change strategy in Iraq. There have been only three months in which more US forces died in Iraq: 107 in January last year; at least 135 in April 2004, and 137 in November 2004.
US officials have linked this month's higher death toll to a historical spike in violence during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, additional US military vulnerability because of the security drive in Baghdad and the coming US midterm elections.
US forces were continuing to search for a missing soldier, an Iraqi-born linguist abducted while visiting relatives on Monday.
Super Typhoon Kong-rey is the largest cyclone to impact Taiwan in 27 years, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said today. Kong-rey’s radius of maximum wind (RMW) — the distance between the center of a cyclone and its band of strongest winds — has expanded to 320km, CWA forecaster Chang Chun-yao (張竣堯) said. The last time a typhoon of comparable strength with an RMW larger than 300km made landfall in Taiwan was Typhoon Herb in 1996, he said. Herb made landfall between Keelung and Suao (蘇澳) in Yilan County with an RMW of 350km, Chang said. The weather station in Alishan (阿里山) recorded 1.09m of
NO WORK, CLASS: President William Lai urged people in the eastern, southern and northern parts of the country to be on alert, with Typhoon Kong-rey approaching Typhoon Kong-rey is expected to make landfall on Taiwan’s east coast today, with work and classes canceled nationwide. Packing gusts of nearly 300kph, the storm yesterday intensified into a typhoon and was expected to gain even more strength before hitting Taitung County, the US Navy’s Joint Typhoon Warning Center said. The storm is forecast to cross Taiwan’s south, enter the Taiwan Strait and head toward China, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The CWA labeled the storm a “strong typhoon,” the most powerful on its scale. Up to 1.2m of rainfall was expected in mountainous areas of eastern Taiwan and destructive winds are likely
The Central Weather Administration (CWA) yesterday at 5:30pm issued a sea warning for Typhoon Kong-rey as the storm drew closer to the east coast. As of 8pm yesterday, the storm was 670km southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻) and traveling northwest at 12kph to 16kph. It was packing maximum sustained winds of 162kph and gusts of up to 198kph, the CWA said. A land warning might be issued this morning for the storm, which is expected to have the strongest impact on Taiwan from tonight to early Friday morning, the agency said. Orchid Island (Lanyu, 蘭嶼) and Green Island (綠島) canceled classes and work
KONG-REY: A woman was killed in a vehicle hit by a tree, while 205 people were injured as the storm moved across the nation and entered the Taiwan Strait Typhoon Kong-rey slammed into Taiwan yesterday as one of the biggest storms to hit the nation in decades, whipping up 10m waves, triggering floods and claiming at least one life. Kong-rey made landfall in Taitung County’s Chenggong Township (成功) at 1:40pm, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The typhoon — the first in Taiwan’s history to make landfall after mid-October — was moving north-northwest at 21kph when it hit land, CWA data showed. The fast-moving storm was packing maximum sustained winds of 184kph, with gusts of up to 227kph, CWA data showed. It was the same strength as Typhoon Gaemi, which was the most
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