An attack on a US convoy sparked a large fire in a marketplace in eastern Baghdad yesterday, as gunmen in Basra assassinated a police commander who was also a senior member of a leading Shiite political party.
Dozens of stalls were set ablaze at 2am local time when a bomb exploded next to a convoy of US military vehicles driving down a commercial street in the capital’s eastern district.
A Humvee was damaged in the blast, said an Iraqi police officer who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to release the information.
Residents said more than a dozen US and Iraqi firefighting vehicles rushed to the scene to put out the blaze which continued until morning. The US military did not comment.
The attack comes amid continuing clashes between US and Iraqi forces and Shiite militias in eastern Baghdad.
The US military said militants firing rocket propelled grenades ambushed a patrol by US troops in eastern Baghdad late on Sunday night.
Armed helicopters and an Abrams main battle tank repulsed the attack, killing six of the gunmen, the statement said.
The government is demanding that radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr disband his Mehdi Army militia which has strongholds in Baghdad’s sprawling Sadr City neighborhood, the port city of Basra and other locations in southern Iraq.
Clashes in Basra have abated since a failed government offensive last month to dislodge militia groups. But sporadic violence has been continuing in the country’s oil capital.
Late on Sunday, unknown gunmen assassinated police Major Ali Haider, a commander in the department’s serious crimes directorate. Police said Haider was a member of the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council, a Shiite political party that is part of Maliki’s governing coalition.
Elsewhere in Iraq, US soldiers discovered a mass grave near Muqdadiyah, 90km north of Baghdad, the military said yesterday.
The grave site, which was unearthed on Sunday, contained 20 to 30 badly decomposed bodies that appeared to have been buried for nearly eight months, the statement said.
Meanwhile, Iraqi forces freed British journalist Richard Butler, a photographer for the US network CBS, who was kidnapped in Basra in February, Defence Ministry spokesman Major-General Mohammed al-Askary said.
“He is in good health. He is fine. He’s here with me,” Askary said by telephone from Basra.
STILL COMMITTED: The US opposes any forced change to the ‘status quo’ in the Strait, but also does not seek conflict, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said US President Donald Trump’s administration released US$5.3 billion in previously frozen foreign aid, including US$870 million in security exemptions for programs in Taiwan, a list of exemptions reviewed by Reuters showed. Trump ordered a 90-day pause on foreign aid shortly after taking office on Jan. 20, halting funding for everything from programs that fight starvation and deadly diseases to providing shelters for millions of displaced people across the globe. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who has said that all foreign assistance must align with Trump’s “America First” priorities, issued waivers late last month on military aid to Israel and Egypt, the
‘UNITED FRONT’ FRONTS: Barring contact with Huaqiao and Jinan universities is needed to stop China targeting Taiwanese students, the education minister said Taiwan has blacklisted two Chinese universities from conducting academic exchange programs in the nation after reports that the institutes are arms of Beijing’s United Front Work Department, Minister of Education Cheng Ying-yao (鄭英耀) said in an exclusive interview with the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister paper) published yesterday. China’s Huaqiao University in Xiamen and Quanzhou, as well as Jinan University in Guangzhou, which have 600 and 1,500 Taiwanese on their rolls respectively, are under direct control of the Chinese government’s political warfare branch, Cheng said, citing reports by national security officials. A comprehensive ban on Taiwanese institutions collaborating or
France’s nuclear-powered aircraft carrier and accompanying warships were in the Philippines yesterday after holding combat drills with Philippine forces in the disputed South China Sea in a show of firepower that would likely antagonize China. The Charles de Gaulle on Friday docked at Subic Bay, a former US naval base northwest of Manila, for a break after more than two months of deployment in the Indo-Pacific region. The French carrier engaged with security allies for contingency readiness and to promote regional security, including with Philippine forces, navy ships and fighter jets. They held anti-submarine warfare drills and aerial combat training on Friday in
COMBAT READINESS: The military is reviewing weaponry, personnel resources, and mobilization and recovery forces to adjust defense strategies, the defense minister said The military has released a photograph of Minister of National Defense Wellington Koo (顧立雄) appearing to sit beside a US general during the annual Han Kuang military exercises on Friday last week in a historic first. In the photo, Koo, who was presiding over the drills with high-level officers, appears to be sitting next to US Marine Corps Major General Jay Bargeron, the director of strategic planning and policy of the US Indo-Pacific Command, although only Bargeron’s name tag is visible in the seat as “J5 Maj General.” It is the first time the military has released a photo of an active
RSS