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.
‘HARD-HEADED’: Some people did not evacuate to protect their property or because they were skeptical of the warnings, a disaster agency official said Typhoon Man-yi yesterday slammed into the Philippines’ most populous island, with the national weather service warning of flooding, landslides and huge waves as the storm sweeps across the archipelago nation. Man-yi was still packing maximum sustained winds of 185kph after making its first landfall late on Saturday on lightly populated Catanduanes island. More than 1.2 million people fled their homes ahead of Man-yi as the weather forecaster warned of a “life-threatening” effect from the powerful storm, which follows an unusual streak of violent weather. Man-yi uprooted trees, brought down power lines and smashed flimsy houses to pieces after hitting Catanduanes in the typhoon-prone
BELT-TIGHTENING: Chinese investments in Cambodia are projected to drop to US$35 million in 2026 from more than US$420 million in 2021 At a ceremony in August, Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet knelt to receive blessings from saffron-robed monks as fireworks and balloons heralded the breaking of ground for a canal he hoped would transform his country’s economic fortunes. Addressing hundreds of people waving the Cambodian flag, Hun Manet said China would contribute 49 percent to the funding of the Funan Techo Canal that would link the Mekong River to the Gulf of Thailand and reduce Cambodia’s shipping reliance on Vietnam. Cambodia’s government estimates the strategic, if contentious, infrastructure project would cost US$1.7 billion, nearly 4 percent of the nation’s annual GDP. However, months later,
HOPEFUL FOR PEACE: Zelenskiy said that the war would ‘end sooner’ with Trump and that Ukraine must do all it can to ensure the fighting ends next year Russia’s state-owned gas company Gazprom early yesterday suspended gas deliveries via Ukraine, Vienna-based utility OMV said, in a development that signals a fast-approaching end of Moscow’s last gas flows to Europe. Russia’s oldest gas-export route to Europe, a pipeline dating back to Soviet days via Ukraine, is set to shut at the end of this year. Ukraine has said it would not extend the transit agreement with Russian state-owned Gazprom to deprive Russia of profits that Kyiv says help to finance the war against it. Moscow’s suspension of gas for Austria, the main receiver of gas via Ukraine, means Russia now only
A beauty queen who pulled out of the Miss South Africa competition when her nationality was questioned has said she wants to relocate to Nigeria, after coming second in the Miss Universe pageant while representing the West African country. Chidimma Adetshina, whose father is Nigerian, was crowned Miss Universe Africa and Oceania and was runner-up to Denmark’s Victoria Kjar Theilvig in Mexico on Saturday night. The 23-year-old law student withdrew from the Miss South Africa competition in August, saying that she needed to protect herself and her family after the government alleged that her mother had stolen the identity of a South
RSS