A series of five bomb attacks -- including two suicide car bombings -- in Kirkuk yesterday left more than 20 people dead and nearly 80 wounded, police said.
Meanwhile, a series of near simultaneous mortar and bomb attacks in Fallujah killed four people and wounded 10 in the center of the city and led to a vehicle curfew throughout the city.
A suicide truck bomb exploded in the morning in the center of the northern city of Kirkuk, 290km north of Baghdad, killing 18 and wounding 55, said police Brigadier Sarhat Qadir. A few hours later, a suicide car bomb rammed into a joint US-Iraqi army patrol in the south of the city, killing at least three bystanders and wounding eight others, he said.
PHOTO: AP
Two roadside bombs later targeted police patrols in separate parts of the city. One killed two civilians and wounded four, while the second wounded three civilians, Qadir said.
Shortly afterward, a parked car bomb exploded near the house of a Waasif al-Obeidi, a Sunni sheik, killing one of his bodyguards and wounding eight people -- two guards and six bystanders, Qadir said.
Al-Obeidi, the deputy head of the al-Obeidi tribe, was not in his house at the time.
In the truck suicide bombing, a gunman in the truck opened fire on civilians before the vehicle exploded near the city's criminal court and the headquarters of two main Kurdish political parties, the Kurdistan Democratic Party and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, Qadir said.
The Patriotic Union of Kurdistan is run by Iraq's President Jalal Talabani, while the president of Kurdistan, Massoud Barzani, runs the Kurdistan Democratic Party.
Meanwhile, a roadside bomb detonated in the center of Fallujah, 65km west of Baghdad, followed a few minutes later by a car bomb attack and a blast from an explosives-rigged motorcycle in separate areas of the city. All three attacks targeted police patrols, police Lieutenant Mohammed Ismail said.
The attacks killed a total of four people, including two policemen, and wounded 10 others, including four policemen, he said. He would not provide details of which attack the casualties resulted from.
Shortly afterward, a mortar round hit the area of a US and Iraqi police base in the center of the city, and clashes erupted between gunmen and police nearby. Another mortar fell on an Iraqi army base in western Fallujah but did not cause any casualties, Ismail said.
Meanwhile, the bullet-riddled bodies of four unidentified men were found in separate neighborhoods in east Baghdad yesterday. All were blindfolded and had their hands and legs tied, the police said.
AIR SUPPORT: The Ministry of National Defense thanked the US for the delivery, adding that it was an indicator of the White House’s commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) and Representative to the US Alexander Yui on Friday attended a delivery ceremony for the first of Taiwan’s long-awaited 66 F-16C/D Block 70 jets at a Lockheed Martin Corp factory in Greenville, South Carolina. “We are so proud to be the global home of the F-16 and to support Taiwan’s air defense capabilities,” US Representative William Timmons wrote on X, alongside a photograph of Taiwanese and US officials at the event. The F-16C/D Block 70 jets Taiwan ordered have the same capabilities as aircraft that had been upgraded to F-16Vs. The batch of Lockheed Martin
GRIDLOCK: The National Fire Agency’s Special Search and Rescue team is on standby to travel to the countries to help out with the rescue effort A powerful earthquake rocked Myanmar and neighboring Thailand yesterday, killing at least three people in Bangkok and burying dozens when a high-rise building under construction collapsed. Footage shared on social media from Myanmar’s second-largest city showed widespread destruction, raising fears that many were trapped under the rubble or killed. The magnitude 7.7 earthquake, with an epicenter near Mandalay in Myanmar, struck at midday and was followed by a strong magnitude 6.4 aftershock. The extent of death, injury and destruction — especially in Myanmar, which is embroiled in a civil war and where information is tightly controlled at the best of times —
Taiwan was ranked the fourth-safest country in the world with a score of 82.9, trailing only Andorra, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar in Numbeo’s Safety Index by Country report. Taiwan’s score improved by 0.1 points compared with last year’s mid-year report, which had Taiwan fourth with a score of 82.8. However, both scores were lower than in last year’s first review, when Taiwan scored 83.3, and are a long way from when Taiwan was named the second-safest country in the world in 2021, scoring 84.8. Taiwan ranked higher than Singapore in ninth with a score of 77.4 and Japan in 10th with
SECURITY RISK: If there is a conflict between China and Taiwan, ‘there would likely be significant consequences to global economic and security interests,’ it said China remains the top military and cyber threat to the US and continues to make progress on capabilities to seize Taiwan, a report by US intelligence agencies said on Tuesday. The report provides an overview of the “collective insights” of top US intelligence agencies about the security threats to the US posed by foreign nations and criminal organizations. In its Annual Threat Assessment, the agencies divided threats facing the US into two broad categories, “nonstate transnational criminals and terrorists” and “major state actors,” with China, Russia, Iran and North Korea named. Of those countries, “China presents the most comprehensive and robust military threat