Saddam Hussein was called to a hearing where he was questioned about repression of the Shiite uprising in 1991, which erupted after US-led forces drove the Iraqi army out of Kuwait, the chief investigative judge said yesterday.
In ongoing violence, two Marines were killed by insurgent gunfire and rocket-propelled grenades in western Iraq, prompting US jets to pound insurgent positions with high-tech bombs, officials said yesterday. The deaths brought to 10 the number of US troop fatalities in Iraq this week.
Saddam was summoned Thursday, and answered questions alone during the 45-minute hearing, said Judge Raid Juhi of the Iraqi Special Tribunal, set up to try the former dictator.
Juhi said he expects to conclude the criminal investigation into Saddam's alleged crackdown against Shiites in southern Iraq, as well as his campaign during the late 1980s to forces Iraqi Kurds from wide areas of the north.
A trial date for the former dictator will be announced in coming days, Juhi said.
Saddam is expected to stand trial in September for his alleged role in the 1982 massacre of Shiite Muslims in Dujail north of Baghdad. It will be the first of what are expected to be about a dozen trials involving Saddam and his key henchmen.
In Baghdad, a car bomb exploded near a joint US-Iraqi patrol in the dangerous Dora neighborhood, police reported. At least three civilians were wounded but casualty reports were incomplete, police Lieutenant Thaer Mahmoud said.
A US military statement said the two Marines killed belonged to Regimental Combat Team-2 of the 2nd Marine Division and were killed Thursday by small arms and rocket-propelled grenade fire in a village west of Haditha about 270km west of Baghdad.
The Marines reported killing nine insurgents, five believed to be Syrians, during an engagement Thursday in the same small village.
Jets from the 2nd Marine Air Wing dropped three laser-guided bombs and one global positioning system guided bomb on three buildings used by the insurgents as firing positions, destroying all three of them, the statement added.
Following a rash of attacks and abductions of diplomats in Iraq, the Philippine Embassy in Baghdad has relocated its employees to Amman, Jordan, Philippine Foreign Undersecretary Jose Brillantes said yesterday.
"We continue to maintain our diplomatic ties with Iraq," Brillantes said. "The embassy in Baghdad remains open and the diplomats in Baghdad are in Amman for security reasons occasioned by the recent kidnappings of diplomats."
He said the Filipino diplomats will be in Amman "for an indefinite period of time." It was not clear if all of the embassy's Filipino staff have relocated.
Iraqi militants last month freed Filipino Robert Tarongoy after almost eight months in captivity.
Tarongoy, 31, was the second Filipino known to have been taken hostage in Iraq. Truck driver Angelo de la Cruz was freed last year after the Philippine government granted the militants' demand for the early withdrawal of its small peacekeeping contingent from Iraq -- a decision strongly criticized by Washington and other allies, but applauded at home.
On Thursday, the US ambassador to Iraq said the military is considering offering protection to foreign diplomats in Baghdad after al-Qaeda terrorists killed three Arab envoys this month.
Airlines in Australia, Hong Kong, India, Malaysia and Singapore yesterday canceled flights to and from the Indonesian island of Bali, after a nearby volcano catapulted an ash tower into the sky. Australia’s Jetstar, Qantas and Virgin Australia all grounded flights after Mount Lewotobi Laki-Laki on Flores island spewed a 9km tower a day earlier. Malaysia Airlines, AirAsia, India’s IndiGo and Singapore’s Scoot also listed flights as canceled. “Volcanic ash poses a significant threat to safe operations of the aircraft in the vicinity of volcanic clouds,” AirAsia said as it announced several cancelations. Multiple eruptions from the 1,703m twin-peaked volcano in
A plane bringing Israeli soccer supporters home from Amsterdam landed at Israel’s Ben Gurion airport on Friday after a night of violence that Israeli and Dutch officials condemned as “anti-Semitic.” Dutch police said 62 arrests were made in connection with the violence, which erupted after a UEFA Europa League soccer tie between Amsterdam club Ajax and Maccabi Tel Aviv. Israeli flag carrier El Al said it was sending six planes to the Netherlands to bring the fans home, after the first flight carrying evacuees landed on Friday afternoon, the Israeli Airports Authority said. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also ordered
Former US House of Representatives speaker Nancy Pelosi said if US President Joe Biden had ended his re-election bid sooner, the Democratic Party could have held a competitive nominating process to choose his replacement. “Had the president gotten out sooner, there may have been other candidates in the race,” Pelosi said in an interview on Thursday published by the New York Times the next day. “The anticipation was that, if the president were to step aside, that there would be an open primary,” she said. Pelosi said she thought the Democratic candidate, US Vice President Kamala Harris, “would have done
Farmer Liu Bingyong used to make a tidy profit selling milk but is now leaking cash — hit by a dairy sector crisis that embodies several of China’s economic woes. Milk is not a traditional mainstay of Chinese diets, but the Chinese government has long pushed people to drink more, citing its health benefits. The country has expanded its dairy production capacity and imported vast numbers of cattle in recent years as Beijing pursues food self-sufficiency. However, chronically low consumption has left the market sloshing with unwanted milk — driving down prices and pushing farmers to the brink — while
RSS