BAGHDAD: At least nine Iraqi soldiers including a colonel were killed on Tuesday after insurgents fired rockets at an army convoy north of Baghdad and gunmen battled troops at checkpoints in a wave of attacks on security forces.
Iraq’s insurgency has ebbed since the height of the war four years ago, but militants tied to Al-Qaeda and other Sunni Muslim Islamists are hitting Shiites and security forces in an attempt to undermine the country’s Shiite-led government.
Military helicopters opened fire on dozens of gunmen attacking checkpoints along a main route north of Baghdad, police and army officials said.
“Dozens of gunmen attacked army and police checkpoints, and army helicopters opened fire with machine guns at their locations,” one police officer, Saif Ali, said by telephone, near the site of the one of the attacks.
Two other soldiers were killed by gunmen using silenced weapons in the north of the capital, police said.
Gunmen in four vehicles assaulted the colonel’s convoy outside the capital, before hitting his car with a rocket-propelled grenade and heavy machine gun fire, killing him and six other soldiers, officials said.
Eight months after the last US troops left, the Iraqi Al-Qaeda affiliate has vowed to revive attacks against Iraq’s Shiites in an attempt to fuel the broad sectarian violence that drove the country to edge of civil war four years ago.
Insurgents also often target local police and army to show authorities are incapable of protecting Iraqis, nine years after the fall of Sunni dictator Saddam Hussein.
While violence has dropped sharply, insurgents carry out at least one major attack a month. Security experts say Sunni Iraqi insurgents have been emboldened by the Sunni-led revolution in neighboring Syria.
Nine Iraqi soldiers killed in north Baghdad attacks
Nine Iraqi soldiers killed in north Baghdad attacks
Darfur civilians ‘face mass atrocities and ethnic violence’
- Medical charity warns of new threat from escalation in fighting in Sudan civil war
KHARTOUM: Civilians in the Darfur region of Sudan face mass atrocities and ethnic violence in the civil war between the regular army and its paramilitary rivals, the charity Medecins Sans Frontieres warned on Thursday.
The paramilitary Rapid Support Forces have sought to consolidate their power in Darfur since losing control of the capital Khartoum in March. Their predecessor, the Janjaweed militia, was accused of genocide in Darfur two decades ago.
The paramilitaries have intensified attacks on El-Fasher, the capital of North Darfur state which they have besieged since May 2024 in an effort to push the army out of its final stronghold in the region.
“People are not only caught in indiscriminate heavy fighting ... but also actively targeted by the Rapid Support Forces and their allies, notably on the basis of their ethnicity,” said Michel-Olivier Lacharite, Medecins Sans Frontieres’ head of emergencies. There were “threats of a full-blown assault,” on El-Fasher, which is home to hundreds of thousands of people largely cut off from food and water supplies and deprived of access to medical care, he said.
Egypt on alert as giant dam in Ethiopia completed
ADDIS ABABA: Ethiopia moved on Thursday to reassure Egypt about its water supply after completing work on a controversial giant $4 billion dam on the Blue Nile.
“To our neighbors downstream, our message is clear: the dam is not a threat, but a shared opportunity,” Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed said.
“The energy and development it will generate stand to uplift not just Ethiopia. We believe in shared progress, shared energy, and shared water. Prosperity for one should mean prosperity for all.”
The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam is 1.8 km wide and 145 meters high, and is Africa's largest hydroelectric project. It can hold 74 billion cubic meters of water and generate more than 5,000 megawatts of power — more than double Ethiopia’s current output. It will begin full operations in September.
Egypt already suffers from severe water scarcity and sees the dam as an existential threat because the country relies on the Nile for 97 percent of its water. President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi and Sudan’s leader Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan met last week and “stressed their rejection of any unilateral measures in the Blue Nile basin.” They were committed to safeguarding water security in the region, Sisi’s spokesman said.
Explosive drone intercepted near Irbil airport in northern Iraq, security statement says
- The “Flight operations at the airport continued normally,” the Irbil airport authority said
IRBIL, Iraq: An explosive drone was shot down near Irbil airport in northern Iraq on Thursday, the Iraqi Kurdistan’s counter-terrorism service said in a statement.
There were no casualties reported, according to two security sources.
The “Flight operations at the airport continued normally and the airport was not affected by any damage,” the Irbil airport authority said in a statement.
The incident only caused a temporary delay in the landing of one aircraft, the statement added.
Jordanian and Vatican officials discuss promotion of Petra as destination for Christian pilgrims
- They say there is a strategic opportunity to integrate the UNESCO World Heritage Site into routes for Christian travelers
- Head of tourism authority says highlighting Petra’s significance to Christian heritage itineraries could enhance Jordan’s position on global religious tourism map
LONDON: Officials from Jordan and the Vatican met on Thursday to discuss ways in which they can cooperate to advance religious tourism, including the promotion of the ancient city of Petra as a destination for Christian pilgrims.
Fares Braizat, who chairs the board of commissioners of the Petra Development and Tourism Regional Authority, said that highlighting the significance of the UNESCO World Heritage Site as part of Christian heritage itineraries could enhance Jordan’s position on the global religious tourism map.
The country has a number of important Christian sites, the most significant of which is the location on the eastern bank of the Jordan River where Jesus is said to have been baptized by John the Baptist. Several popes have visited it, including Francis and John Paul II.
Archbishop Giovanni Pietro Dal Toso, the Vatican’s ambassador to Jordan, confirmed the interest in collaborating with Jordanian authorities, and praised the nation’s stability and its rich historical and religious heritage.
Both officials acknowledged the strategic opportunity that exists to integrate Petra into pilgrimage routes for Christian travelers, the Jordan News Agency reported.
The Petra tourism authority recently lit up the Colosseum in Rome with the signature colors of the historic Jordanian site to celebrate a twinning agreement as part of a marketing strategy to attract European visitors, and to raise Petra’s profile globally as a premier cultural and spiritual tourism destination.
The Vatican itself is also a major tourism destination, for Christian pilgrims in particular. In 2025 it is expected to welcome between 30 and 35 million visitors during its latest Jubilee Year, a significant ecclesiastical event that takes place every 25 years.
