Two double bomb attacks killed at least 35 people in Iraq on Friday, while gunmen raided the home of a police chief, massacring his wife, brother and 12 bodyguards and seizing his children. A twin bomb attack on a Shi’ite mosque near the northern oil city of Kirkuk killed at least 19 people and wounded 22, police and medical officials said.
A suicide car bomber struck a United States military outpost north of Baghdad, killing nine soldiers and wounding 20 others, in the deadliest attack on American ground forces in Iraq in 16 months. In an attack claimed by al-Qaeda, the bomb exploded against a patrol base in the restive province of Diyala on Monday.
Insurgents slaughtered another 47 Iraqis on Sunday, including 23 members of a small religious minority dragged from a bus and gunned down by the roadside, security officials said. The latest day of carnage came as the United States military said it would press on with plans to wall in Baghdad’s worst neighbourhoods despite criticism from residents.
Nearly 400 people have been killed over the past three days in Iraq as insurgents and sectarian militias ripped through a massive United States security crackdown concentrated around Baghdad. A series of coordinated bombings of Shi’ite marketplaces in and north of the capital defied a latest plea from embattled Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki.
Iraq sent another of Saddam Hussein’s former henchmen to the gallows on Tuesday as the nation marked the fourth anniversary of the United States-led war still battling a raging insurgency and sectarian conflict. Former vice-president Taha Yassin Ramadan was executed before dawn for crimes against humanity over the killing of 148 Shi’ites in the 1980s.
Killings and attacks in Baghdad have slumped significantly since the launch of a security plan one month ago, United States officials said on Wednesday, even as car bombs claimed more lives in the capital. ”There has been an over 50% reduction in murders and executions” since Operation Fardh al-Qanoon (Imposing Law) began, Major General William Caldwell said.
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/ 6 February 2007
An Iranian diplomat has been kidnapped in the Iraqi capital, Tehran said on Tuesday, as security forces pressed on with troop deployments in Baghdad ahead of a United States-Iraqi crackdown to curb raging violence. As the troops took up positions in Baghdad, violence continued in Iraq with at least five people killed and four others found murdered, Iraqi security officials said.
Pressure mounted on Monday on Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki to halt the executions of two of Saddam Hussein’s henchmen amid growing international criticism over the way the ousted dictator was hanged. New York-based Human Rights Watch said the executions would further highlight ”the Iraqi government’s disturbing disregard for human rights”.
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/ 14 December 2006
A high-level United States congressional delegation visiting Iraq called on Thursday for between 15Â 000 and 30Â 000 more US troops to be sent to bring stability to the war-torn country. ”The situation is very, very serious. It requires injection of additional troops to control the situation and allow the political process to proceed,” said Senator John McCain.
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/ 27 November 2006
A witness at Saddam Hussein’s genocide trial in Baghdad described on Monday how he survived the murder of dozens of villagers by Iraqi forces during the 1988 military campaign against the Kurds. The session resumed after a two-week break with witness Taimor Abdallah Rokhzai telling the court how Kurdish villagers were taken out into the desert and shot by soldiers.