Nine Iraqi policemen were killed on Monday in a spate of insurgent attacks as the international Red Cross launched an appeal to help hundreds of thousands of Iraqis affected by instability in their country.
Meanwhile, two former Iraqi detainees alleged that US soldiers threatened to throw them in a cage with a lion during interrogation, adding that they were also given electric shocks and shot with rubber bullets.
Nine policemen died and nine were wounded in a series of attacks in Baghdad and the northern city of Kirkuk, security officials said.
PHOTO: AFP
Three died and three were hurt when a roadside bomb exploded in the northern oil-producing city of Kirkuk, while four more were killed when their patrol car was ambushed by gunmen just east of the town.
In eastern Baghdad, two policemen died and six were wounded when a car bomb exploded near a restaurant popular with security forces, an interior ministry official said. A passerby was also hurt.
In other violence, a professor of Arabic literature, Jassem al-Fhidawi, was shot dead outside Baghdad's Mustansiriyah university, a day after another professor and his driver were also killed there, a defense ministry official said.
And six civilians were wounded by a roadside bomb in the capital's eastern district of Zayunah.
The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies launched an appeal for money to help 60,000 Iraqi families -- or around 350,000 people -- many of whom are living in poverty, facing food shortages and displaced by conflict.
"A positive response to this emergency appeal will enable us to continue providing badly needed humanitarian assistance during the winter period to the most vulnerable groups like single parent families, the handicapped, unaccompanied children," Mazin Salloum, head of the Iraqi Red Crescent, said in a statement.
The UN mission said in a report on human rights that more than 10,000 families have been displaced by ongoing military operations in the western Al-Anbar and northern Nineveh provinces.
According to World Health Organization reports, doctors were also detained and medical facilities occupied by armed forces in those provinces last month, in contravention with international law.
LION CAGE TORTURE
Meanwhile, a US television network broadcast an interview with two former Iraqi detainees, Thahee Sabbar and Sherzad Khalid, who said that they were tortured by US soldiers in July 2003.
Khalid alleged that US soldiers took him to a cage with a lion and threatened to throw him and others to the lion if they did not "confess," ABC reported.
US soldiers asked them for information about former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein, who was then still on the run.
"I said to him, `How would I know where Saddam is?' And I thought that he was kidding me. And that's why I laughed. And he beat me again," Khalid said.
At one point, Sabbar alleged he and other detainees were subjected to a mock execution.
"They directed their weapons towards us," Sabbar said.
"And they shot, shot towards our heads and chests. And when the shots sounded, some of us lost consciousness. Some started to cry. Some lost control of their bladders. And they were laughing the whole time," he said.
The Iraqis said they were released several months later with no charges filed.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
Japan unveiled a plan on Thursday to evacuate around 120,000 residents and tourists from its southern islets near Taiwan within six days in the event of an “emergency”. The plan was put together as “the security situation surrounding our nation grows severe” and with an “emergency” in mind, the government’s crisis management office said. Exactly what that emergency might be was left unspecified in the plan but it envisages the evacuation of around 120,000 people in five Japanese islets close to Taiwan. China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and has stepped up military pressure in recent years, including
UNREST: The authorities in Turkey arrested 13 Turkish journalists in five days, deported a BBC correspondent and on Thursday arrested a reporter from Sweden Waving flags and chanting slogans, many hundreds of thousands of anti-government demonstrators on Saturday rallied in Istanbul, Turkey, in defence of democracy after the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu which sparked Turkey’s worst street unrest in more than a decade. Under a cloudless blue sky, vast crowds gathered in Maltepe on the Asian side of Turkey’s biggest city on the eve of the Eid al-Fitr celebration which started yesterday, marking the end of Ramadan. Ozgur Ozel, chairman of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), which organized the rally, said there were 2.2 million people in the crowd, but
RSS