At least 64 people were killed in a bloody wave of bomb blasts in Iraq yesterday as US troops battled insurgents in the lawless western hinterland in a massive assault against Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's network.
At least four explosions in just an hour left trails of carnage in the northern towns of Tikrit and Hawijah and in the capital Baghdad, the deadliest attacks in a mounting wave of violence accompanying the formation of Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari's government earlier this month.
A first car bomb struck a busy market area in Saddam Hussein's hometown of Tikrit, killing 31, mostly civilians, and wounding 66, police said.
Mangled metal scraps, sandals and destroyed market stalls littered the blood-stained ground, a reporter said. Strips of flesh splattered shop fronts near the site of the explosion.
"This is not jihad [holy war]. There was no US patrol, no Iraqi police at the time of the blast. This car bomb tore civilians to shreds," said Zeid Hamad, whose mobile telephone shop lies a few meters away from the blast site.
"Most of these people were waiting here to be hired as day laborers. They are looking for jobs, just trying to feed their families," he said.
A curfew was briefly slapped on Tikrit following the blast, and mosques blared out messages calling on residents of the small Sunni town 180km north of Baghdad to donate blood for the wounded.
In another attack, a suicide bomber wearing a belt of explosives blew himself up outside an army recruitment center in the town of Hawijah, northeast of Tikrit, killing 30 people and wounding 31, police and hospital sources said.
Many of the dead could not immediately be identified, but were believed to be young men from outlying villages who had come to join the new Iraqi army, local hospital doctor Abdallah Yussef said.
Forty-six people, mostly police recruits, were killed in a similar attack in the northern Kurdish city of Arbil on May 4.
Insurgents also detonated three car bombs in Baghdad. One targeting a police station in the restive southern district of Dura killed three people, an interior ministry official said.
Nine were wounded when a car bomb later exploded at a busy road intersection in the capital's upmarket Mansur district, the official said. Another car bomb went off in a western neighborhood of the capital but there were no immediate casualty figures.
Car bombs have been the weapon of choice for insurgents who have stepped up their attacks in recent weeks, killing nearly 400 people since the start of the month.
The past few days have also been among the deadliest in months for US troops, with 15 dead between Saturday and Monday.
Security sources said rebels kidnapped Nawaf Raja Farhan al-Mahalawi, the governor of the restive western Sunni province of Al-Anbar, where US forces are engaged in a large-scale operation to flush out insurgents.
Officials said rebels with ties to Zarqawi's network were using the governor as a bargaining chip as US forces pressed on with "Operation Matador," one of the largest post-Saddam military operations in Iraq.
The US military said its troops were encountering unsually tough resistance.
"There are reports that these people are in uniforms, in some cases are wearing protected vests, and there's some suspicion that their training exceeds that of what we have seen with other engagements further east," US Lieutenant General James Conway said in Washington.
Zarqawi, the leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq who has a US$25 million prize on his head, was sighted in the area.
‘GREAT OPPRTUNITY’: The Paraguayan president made the remarks following Donald Trump’s tapping of several figures with deep Latin America expertise for his Cabinet Paraguay President Santiago Pena called US president-elect Donald Trump’s incoming foreign policy team a “dream come true” as his nation stands to become more relevant in the next US administration. “It’s a great opportunity for us to advance very, very fast in the bilateral agenda on trade, security, rule of law and make Paraguay a much closer ally” to the US, Pena said in an interview in Washington ahead of Trump’s inauguration today. “One of the biggest challenges for Paraguay was that image of an island surrounded by land, a country that was isolated and not many people know about it,”
DIALOGUE: US president-elect Donald Trump on his Truth Social platform confirmed that he had spoken with Xi, saying ‘the call was a very good one’ for the US and China US president-elect Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) discussed Taiwan, trade, fentanyl and TikTok in a phone call on Friday, just days before Trump heads back to the White House with vows to impose tariffs and other measures on the US’ biggest rival. Despite that, Xi congratulated Trump on his second term and pushed for improved ties, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs said. The call came the same day that the US Supreme Court backed a law banning TikTok unless it is sold by its China-based parent company. “We both attach great importance to interaction, hope for
‘FIGHT TO THE END’: Attacking a court is ‘unprecedented’ in South Korea and those involved would likely face jail time, a South Korean political pundit said Supporters of impeached South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol yesterday stormed a Seoul court after a judge extended the impeached leader’s detention over his ill-fated attempt to impose martial law. Tens of thousands of people had gathered outside the Seoul Western District Court on Saturday in a show of support for Yoon, who became South Korea’s first sitting head of state to be arrested in a dawn raid last week. After the court extended his detention on Saturday, the president’s supporters smashed windows and doors as they rushed inside the building. Hundreds of police officers charged into the court, arresting dozens and denouncing an
‘DISCRIMINATION’: The US Office of Personnel Management ordered that public DEI-focused Web pages be taken down, while training and contracts were canceled US President Donald Trump’s administration on Tuesday moved to end affirmative action in federal contracting and directed that all federal diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) staff be put on paid leave and eventually be laid off. The moves follow an executive order Trump signed on his first day ordering a sweeping dismantling of the federal government’s diversity and inclusion programs. Trump has called the programs “discrimination” and called to restore “merit-based” hiring. The executive order on affirmative action revokes an order issued by former US president Lyndon Johnson, and curtails DEI programs by federal contractors and grant recipients. It is using one of the
RSS