A bomb exploded outside a bank in the northern city of Kirkuk yesterday killing 19 people, while five Iraqi soldiers died in a suicide attack north of Baghdad. The bodies of 24 men were found after falling victim to two ambushes in western Iraq.
The spree of killings across the country comes as lawmakers wrangle over how big a say Sunni Arab Muslims should have drawing up the country's new constitution. The wrangling threatens to further alienate Sunni Arabs, who fell from power after their patron, former president Saddam Hussein, was ousted and detained. Sunni Arabs account for most of the insurgents wreaking havoc across Iraq.
New footage of a subdued-looking Saddam released by the Iraqi Special Tribunal on Monday showed the former dictator being quizzed by a judge -- apparently on Sunday -- about the killings of at least 50 Iraqis in a Shiite town.
PHOTO: EPA
Unlike Saddam's combative appearance at his arraignment on July 1, last year -- the last time he was seen on video -- the new tape reveals a man who appears a shadow of his former self.
Saddam's fall from power is seen as a contributing factor to the raging insurgency, which is being fanned by Sunni Muslim extremists and Saddam loyalists.
A bomb killed 19 people, including pensioners waiting for checks and child street vendors, outside the Rafidiyan Bank in downtown Kirkuk, 290km north of Baghdad, said police Brigadier Sarhad Qadir. He said another 81 people were injured.
The bomb exploded close to a walkover bridge crossing the road in front of the bank. Children and other vendors selling products from sugar to kitchen utensils on both the bridge and the road underneath were among those killed.
"I came here to get my wages and I brought my grandson with me who insisted on accompanying me," said Hussein Mohammed, a 70-year old retired employee of the Northern Oil Company, his head swathed in bandages. "The bomb exploded as we queued outside the bank and we were injured and rushed to hospital."
The child survived.
The pavement outside the bank was strewn with rubble and glass from the building, while several bodies were seen lying underneath wreckage. At least two cars parked nearby were set ablaze.
Kirkuk is an ethnically mixed oil-rich city where insurgents have routinely launched deadly attacks apparently seeking to foment ethnic tension.
A suicide car bomber rammed his vehicle into an Iraqi army checkpoint, killing five soldiers and wounding two others in Kan'an, 45km north of Baghdad, Iraqi Army Colonel Ismael Ibrahim said. Two civilians were also wounded.
The bodies of 24 men -- some of which were beheaded -- that had been killed in recent ambushes on convoys in western Iraq were brought to a Baghdad hospital, a hospital morgue official yesterday.
Ali Chijan said two batches of bodies were brought to western Baghdad's Yarmouk Hospital late Monday.
Seventeen of the bodies believed to be all Iraqis were found near Khaldiyah, a town 120km west of Baghdad, Chijan said.
Hospital official Dr. Mohammed Jawad said some of the bodies had been decapitated and the others had been shot in the head.
Jawad said the bodies might belong to men who have been missing since their convoy delivering supplies for the US military was ambushed near Khaldiyah on Thursday.
Two of the bodies were identified as an Iraqi policeman and an interpreter, but it was not immediately clear which company they worked for.
Chijan said the badly decomposed bodies of another seven men, including one Iraqi and six believed to be "Asians," were brought to the hospital after being killed in a convoy ambush several days ago. Most had been shot in the face.
The slain Iraqi was identified as Ahmed Adnan, said his cousin, Hussein Ali, who was interviewed by reporters at the hospital.
Ali said his cousin worked for a US-owned company American-Iraqi Solution group.
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.
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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
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