Shops and schools were open in the Fallujah yesterday and there was no sound of any fighting one day after frenzied crowds dragged the burned and mutilated bodies of four US civilians through the streets and strung two of them up from a bridge after rebels had ambushed their vehicles.
A handful of Iraqi police manned their standard roadside checkpoints and there was no sign of US troops.
Some of the bodies of the four Americans were loaded onto the back of a donkey-pulled wooden cart Wednesday evening and paraded through Fallujah's streets as crowds clapped and whistled. It was not clear where the bodies were early yesterday.
PHOTO: EPA
Five US soldiers were also killed on Wednesday when a bomb exploded under their armored vehicle north of Fallujah, about 55km west of Baghdad, making it the bloodiest day for Americans in Iraq since Jan. 8.
Chanting "Fallujah is the graveyard of Americans," residents celebrated after the assault on two four-wheel-drive civilian vehicles left both cars in flames.
Residents in Fallujah said insurgents attacked the contractors with small arms and rocket-propelled grenades. After the attack, a jubilant crowd of civilians, none of whom appeared to be armed, gathered to celebrate, dragging the bodies through the street and hanging two of them from the bridge. Many of those in the crowd were excited young boys who shouted slogans in front of TV cameras.
AP Television News pictures showed one man beating a charred corpse with a metal pole. Others tied a yellow rope to a body, hooked it to a car and dragged it down the main street of town. Two blackened and mangled corpses were hung from the green iron bridge spanning the Euphrates River.
"The people of Fallujah hung some of the bodies on the old bridge like slaughtered sheep," resident Abdul Aziz Mohammed said. Some corpses were dismembered, he said.
US officials blamed terrorists and remnants of Saddam Hussein's former regime for the "horrific attacks" on the US contractors.
"It is offensive, it is despicable the way these individuals have been treated," White House press secretary Scott McClellan said on Wednesday.
Referring to the planned June 30 transfer of sovereignty to Iraqis, McClellan said "the best way to honor those that lost their lives" is to continue with efforts to bring democracy to Iraq.
US State Department spokesman Adam Ereli said the contractors, all men, "were trying to make a difference and to help others."
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
DITCH TACTICS: Kenyan officers were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch suspected to have been deliberately dug by Haitian gang members A Kenyan policeman deployed in Haiti has gone missing after violent gangs attacked a group of officers on a rescue mission, a UN-backed multinational security mission said in a statement yesterday. The Kenyan officers on Tuesday were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch “suspected to have been deliberately dug by gangs,” the statement said, adding that “specialized teams have been deployed” to search for the missing officer. Local media outlets in Haiti reported that the officer had been killed and videos of a lifeless man clothed in Kenyan uniform were shared on social media. Gang violence has left
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
Japan unveiled a plan on Thursday to evacuate around 120,000 residents and tourists from its southern islets near Taiwan within six days in the event of an “emergency”. The plan was put together as “the security situation surrounding our nation grows severe” and with an “emergency” in mind, the government’s crisis management office said. Exactly what that emergency might be was left unspecified in the plan but it envisages the evacuation of around 120,000 people in five Japanese islets close to Taiwan. China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and has stepped up military pressure in recent years, including