The number of Iraqi civilians killed in the nation's brutal civil conflict rose by more than a third last month despite a five-month-old surge in US troop levels, government figures showed yesterday.
At least 1,652 civilians were killed in Iraq last month, 33 percent more than in the previous month, figures compiled by the Iraqi health, defense and interior ministries showed.
Casualties continued to mount as the death toll from an attack by a suicide bomber driving a fuel truck packed with explosives in western Baghdad yesterday rose to 50 people, police said.
Sxity were wounded in the attack in Mansour District. Police said the bomber lured motorists queueing for petrol to his truck after earlier saying he had rammed into the line of vehicles.
Meanwhile, two critical reports emerged pointing to weaknesses in US efforts to rebuild and stabilize Iraq, which has been in the grip of several overlapping civil conflicts for more than four years.
Last month's civilian toll was slightly higher than the number for February, when the US began a "surge" in troops aimed at flooding Baghdad with reinforcements to stem Iraq's sectarian bloodletting.
The Iraqi government refuses to release official casualty figures, but the new numbers tally with the personal experience of many Baghdad residents, who insist the streets of the capital remain extremely dangerous.
"I was smart enough to abandon my house before the militia killed me, as it killed two of my friends," said a Sunni man who once worked as a perfume dealer in mainly Shiite east Baghdad before fleeing the city earlier this year.
"When the security crackdown was launched, I felt some hope, but it faded away and came to an end a couple of days ago when the same militia I escaped from killed another friend of mine and his brother," he said.
The man, who would not give his name for fear of his safety, said everyone in his neighborhood knows who killed the men, but will not speak out for fear of the local Shiite militia, which dominates the area.
Violence is mounting at a time when Iraq's beleaguered government is paralyzed by political infighting.
The main Sunni Arab political bloc said yesterday it was withdrawing from Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's coalition government over his failure to meet a list of demands.
The move is likely to complicate efforts by Maliki's shaky government to agree on a series of laws which Washington sees as crucial to bringing minority Sunni Arabs more closely into the political process and quelling sectarian violence.
The Accordance Front, which last week suspended the work of its six ministers in government, had wanted a greater say in security matters and had accused Maliki's Shiite led-coalition government of failing to consult it on key issues.
"The Accordance Front is announcing that is withdrawing from the government of Nouri al-Maliki and its deputy prime minister and the five ministers will present today [yesterday] their resignations," Accordance Front official Rafei Issawi told a news conference.
Six ministers loyal to Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr also quit Maliki's government in June in protest over his refusal to set a timetable for a US troop withdrawal. They have not yet been replaced.
Meanwhile, a US Government Accountability Office probe revealed the US military cannot account for 190,000 weapons issued to Iraq's beleaguered security forces in 2004 and 2005.
According to a July 31 report, the US military "cannot fully account for about 110,000 AK-47 assault rifles, 80,000 pistols, 135,000 items of body armor and 115,000 helmets reported as issued to Iraqi forces."
Asian perspectives of the US have shifted from a country once perceived as a force of “moral legitimacy” to something akin to “a landlord seeking rent,” Singaporean Minister for Defence Ng Eng Hen (黃永宏) said on the sidelines of an international security meeting. Ng said in a round-table discussion at the Munich Security Conference in Germany that assumptions undertaken in the years after the end of World War II have fundamentally changed. One example is that from the time of former US president John F. Kennedy’s inaugural address more than 60 years ago, the image of the US was of a country
‘UNUSUAL EVENT’: The Australian defense minister said that the Chinese navy task group was entitled to be where it was, but Australia would be watching it closely The Australian and New Zealand militaries were monitoring three Chinese warships moving unusually far south along Australia’s east coast on an unknown mission, officials said yesterday. The Australian government a week ago said that the warships had traveled through Southeast Asia and the Coral Sea, and were approaching northeast Australia. Australian Minister for Defence Richard Marles yesterday said that the Chinese ships — the Hengyang naval frigate, the Zunyi cruiser and the Weishanhu replenishment vessel — were “off the east coast of Australia.” Defense officials did not respond to a request for comment on a Financial Times report that the task group from
BLIND COST CUTTING: A DOGE push to lay off 2,000 energy department workers resulted in hundreds of staff at a nuclear security agency being fired — then ‘unfired’ US President Donald Trump’s administration has halted the firings of hundreds of federal employees who were tasked with working on the nation’s nuclear weapons programs, in an about-face that has left workers confused and experts cautioning that the Department of Government Efficiency’s (DOGE’s) blind cost cutting would put communities at risk. Three US officials who spoke to The Associated Press said up to 350 employees at the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) were abruptly laid off late on Thursday, with some losing access to e-mail before they’d learned they were fired, only to try to enter their offices on Friday morning
CONFIDENT ON DEAL: ‘Ukraine wants a seat at the table, but wouldn’t the people of Ukraine have a say? It’s been a long time since an election, the US president said US President Donald Trump on Tuesday criticized Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and added that he was more confident of a deal to end the war after US-Russia talks. Trump increased pressure on Zelenskiy to hold elections and chided him for complaining about being frozen out of talks in Saudi Arabia. The US president also suggested that he could meet Russian President Vladimir Putin before the end of the month as Washington overhauls its stance toward Russia. “I’m very disappointed, I hear that they’re upset about not having a seat,” Trump told reporters at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida when asked about the Ukrainian
RSS