Iran's foreign minister made a historic trip to Baghdad, pledging to secure his country's borders to stop militants from entering Iraq and saying the "situation would have been much worse" if Tehran were actually supporting the insurgency as the US has claimed.
Iranian envoy Kamal Kharrazi's trip on Tuesday was the highest-level visit by an official from any of Iraq's six neighboring countries since former president Saddam Hussein's ouster two years ago.
Kharrazi, who held talks with Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari, President Jalal Talabani and Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari on a day of deepening sectarian violence, vowed that his country was committed to supporting Iraq's political and economic reconstruction and would do all it could to improve security conditions.
"We believe securing the borders between the two countries means security to the Islamic Republic of Iran," Kharrazi said.
Zebari said militants had infiltrated Iraq from Iran, "but we are not saying that they are approved by the Iranian government."
Incoming British Defense Secretary John Reid also visited Iraq on Tuesday, traveling to Baghdad and Basra on his first foreign trip. The stream of visitors is aimed at shoring up the new Iraqi leadership caught in a surge of violence that has killed more than 470 people since the government was announced on April 28.
Al-Jaafari led anti-Saddam militiamen based in Iran during part of his two-decade exile. He has said Iraq now wants positive relations with Iran.
The Iranian envoy's visit comes at a time of spiraling violence fueled by foreign extremists and rival groups of Sunnis and Shiites.
US troops backed by helicopters battled scores of insurgents holed up in two houses in Mosul, 360km northwest of Baghdad. Mosul police commander Lieutenant General Ahmad Mohammed Khalaf claimed 20 militants were killed when US aircraft destroyed the buildings, but the US military said it was unaware of any casualties.
Mortar attacks by insurgents in northern Mosul yesterday killed two Iraqis and injured eight others, including seven schoolchildren, police and hospital officials said.
A car bomb also detonated in Baquba, 60km northeast of Baghdad, injuring 14 people -- including 12 police officers. The car, parked in central Baquba, blew up as a three-car police convoy drove by, damaging all the vehicles, police Colonel Mudhafar Muhammed said.
Three Islamic clerics -- a Shiite and two Sunnis -- were shot and killed in Baghdad, police said on Tuesday, a day after Iraq's prime minister vowed to use an "iron fist" to end sectarian violence.
Another 17 Iraqis were killed on Tuesday: two Iraqi officials in separate Baghdad drive-by shootings, six truck drivers delivering supplies to US forces north of the capital, a former member of Saddam's Baath Party and his three grown sons, three Mosul police officers and two soldiers in Baghdad.
A US soldier was killed and a second was wounded when a roadside bomb struck their patrol near Tikrit, 130km north of Baghdad, the military said. At least 1,622 US military members have died since the Iraq war began in March 2003.
A militant group posted a video on the Internet on Tuesday showing the slaying of two men said to be Iraqis who worked on US bases. Before they died one warned Arabs not to cooperate with the Americans.
The video's authenticity could not be independently verified. The video and statement did not say when the men were abducted and when the killings took place.
Shiite cleric Sheik Mouwaffaq al-Husseini was killed in a Tuesday drive-by shooting by unknown gunmen in Baghdad's western Jihad neighborhood, police Captain Taleb Thamer said.
A senior police officer, speaking on condition of anonymity, said on Tuesday that two more Sunni clerics had been shot and their bodies found in Baghdad within a 24-hour period.
When Shanghai-based designer Guo Qingshan posted a vacation photo on Valentine’s Day and captioned it “Puppy Mountain,” it became a sensation in China and even created a tourist destination. Guo had gone on a hike while visiting his hometown of Yichang in central China’s Hubei Province late last month. When reviewing the photographs, he saw something he had not noticed before: A mountain shaped like a dog’s head rested on the ground next to the Yangtze River, its snout perched at the water’s edge. “It was so magical and cute. I was so excited and happy when I discovered it,” Guo said.
TURNAROUND: The Liberal Party had trailed the Conservatives by a wide margin, but that was before Trump threatened to make Canada the US’ 51st state Canada’s ruling Liberals, who a few weeks ago looked certain to lose an election this year, are mounting a major comeback amid the threat of US tariffs and are tied with their rival Conservatives, according to three new polls. An Ipsos survey released late on Tuesday showed that the left-leaning Liberals have 38 percent public support and the official opposition center-right Conservatives have 36 percent. The Liberals have overturned a 26-point deficit in six weeks, and run advertisements comparing the Conservative leader to Trump. The Conservative strategy had long been to attack unpopular Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, but last month he
Chinese authorities said they began live-fire exercises in the Gulf of Tonkin on Monday, only days after Vietnam announced a new line marking what it considers its territory in the body of water between the nations. The Chinese Maritime Safety Administration said the exercises would be focused on the Beibu Gulf area, closer to the Chinese side of the Gulf of Tonkin, and would run until tomorrow evening. It gave no further details, but the drills follow an announcement last week by Vietnam establishing a baseline used to calculate the width of its territorial waters in the Gulf of Tonkin. State-run Vietnam News
PROBE: Last week, Romanian prosecutors launched a criminal investigation against presidential candidate Calin Georgescu accusing him of supporting fascist groups Tens of thousands of protesters gathered in Romania’s capital on Saturday in the latest anti-government demonstration by far-right groups after a top court canceled a presidential election in the EU country last year. Protesters converged in front of the government building in Bucharest, waving Romania’s tricolor flags and chanting slogans such as “down with the government” and “thieves.” Many expressed support for Calin Georgescu, who emerged as the frontrunner in December’s canceled election, and demanded they be resumed from the second round. George Simion, the leader of the far-right Alliance for the Unity of Romanians (AUR), which organized the protest,
RSS