A parked car bomb exploded in a bustling section of downtown Baghdad early yesterday, killing four people and wounding 15, police said, in the third consecutive day of morning rush hour blasts.
Also yesterday, unidentified gunmen in the volatile northern city of Mosul killed two sisters from a Christian family as they were waiting in front of their house for a ride to work, police said. The women’s mother was injured in the attack.
The blast in Baghdad occurred around 9:30am off al-Nasir Square in the heart of the city — a busy neighborhood of shops, pharmacies and photography stores. Police said that three officers were among the wounded.
In another attack early yesterday, a roadside bomb blew up around 10am in the Shiite-dominated Shaab neighborhood of north Baghdad, officials said. Seven people, including three policemen, were injured in that attack.
The attacks follow two days of rush hour blasts in Baghdad that have killed more than 30 people and wounded some 70 others.
A defense ministry spokesman said yesterday Iraqi and US forces have arrested the “No. 1 butcher” responsible for beheadings in the volatile Diyala Province.
“Iraqi forces received intelligence on a very dangerous terrorist known as the No. 1 butcher who was responsible for a beheading squad that slaughtered innocent people,” Major-General Mohammed al-Askari said.
The suspect, Riyad Wahab Hassan Falih, “also supervised the training of terrorists specializing in beheading Iraqis,” he added in a statement.
The arrest came amid a series of operations across the province in which Iraqi army troops apprehended 65 people in 72 hours.
In an operation early yesterday, troops arrested nine local al-Qaeda leaders who had been hiding in an underground bunker.
Meanwhile, the US military in Iraq is abandoning — deliberately and with little public notice — a centerpiece of the widely acclaimed strategy it adopted nearly two years ago to turn the tide against the insurgency. It is moving US troops farther from the people they are trying to protect.
Starting early last year, the troops were pushed into the cities and villages as part of a change in strategy that included US President George W. Bush’s decision to send more combat forces.
The bigger US presence on the streets was credited by many with allowing the Americans and their Iraqi security partners to build trust among the populace, thus undermining the extremists’ tactics of intimidation, reducing levels of violence and giving new hope to resolving the country’s underlying political conflicts.
Now the Americans are reversing direction, consolidating in larger bases outside the cities and leaving security in the hands of the Iraqis while remaining within reach to respond as the Iraqi forces require. The US hopes to complete its shift out of all Iraqi cities by June next year.
Drug lord Jose Adolfo Macias Villamar, alias “Fito,” was Ecuador’s most-wanted fugitive before his arrest on Wednesday, more than a year after he escaped prison from where he commanded the country’s leading criminal gang. The former taxi driver turned crime boss became the prime target of law enforcement early last year after escaping from a prison in the southwestern port of Guayaquil. Ecuadoran President Daniel Noboa’s government released “wanted” posters with images of his face and offered US$1 million for information leading to his capture. In a country plagued by crime, members of Fito’s gang, Los Choneros, have responded with violence, using car
Two former Chilean ministers are among four candidates competing this weekend for the presidential nomination of the left ahead of November elections dominated by rising levels of violent crime. More than 15 million voters are eligible to choose today between former minister of labor Jeannette Jara, former minister of the interior Carolina Toha and two members of parliament, Gonzalo Winter and Jaime Mulet, to represent the left against a resurgent right. The primary is open to members of the parties within Chilean President Gabriel Boric’s ruling left-wing coalition and other voters who are not affiliated with specific parties. A recent poll by the
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Irish-language rap group Kneecap on Saturday gave an impassioned performance for tens of thousands of fans at the Glastonbury Festival despite criticism by British politicians and a terror charge for one of the trio. Liam Og O hAnnaidh, who performs under the stage name Mo Chara, has been charged under the UK’s Terrorism Act with supporting a proscribed organization for allegedly waving a Hezbollah flag at a concert in London in November last year. The rapper, who was charged under the anglicized version of his name, Liam O’Hanna, is on unconditional bail before a further court hearing in August. “Glastonbury,
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