Baghdad: More than 70 people were killed in a series of car bombings and suicide attacks targeting Shi'ite Muslims across Iraq on Monday, police and medics said, extending the worst sectarian violence since US troops withdrew in December 2011.
The attacks increased the number killed in sectarian clashes in the past week to more than 200. Tensions between Shi'ites, who now lead Iraq, and minority Sunni Muslims have reached a point where some fear a return to all-out civil conflict.
No group claimed responsibility for the bombings. Iraq has a number of Sunni Islamist insurgent groups, including the al Qaeda-affiliated Islamic State of Iraq, which has targeted Shi'ites in a bid to kindle a wider sectarian conflagration.
Nine people were killed in one of two car bombings in Basra, a predominantly Shi'ite city 420 km (260 miles) southeast of Baghdad, police and medics said. "I was on duty when a powerful blast shook the ground," said a police officer near the site of that attack in the Hayaniya neighbourhood....
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06:07 AM, May 21, 2013
Baghdad: At least 20 people were killed by a series of car bombs in mainly Shiite districts of the Iraqi capital, Baghdad, on Monday and 11 others were killed by attacks in the southern city of Basra, police and medics said. Scores of people have been killed in attacks over the past week as tensions between minority Sunni Muslims and Shiites who now lead Iraq have reached their highest level...
02:59 PM, May 20, 2013
Kabul: US special operations forces handed over their base in a strategic region of eastern Afghanistan to local Afghan commandos on Saturday, a senior US commander said. The withdrawal from Nirkh district meets a demand by Afghan President Hamid Karzai that US forces leave the area after allegations that the Americans' Afghan counterparts committed human rights abuses there. "We're coming out of Nirkh," said Major General Tony Thomas, the top...
06:34 PM, Mar 30, 2013
Watch the discussion on the question with Suhasini Haidar on World View. ...
11:48 PM, Mar 01, 2013
Washington: The US special operations chief has warned his troops, current and former, that he would take legal action against anyone found to have exposed sensitive information that could cause fellow forces harm. The threat comes as a new book with a firsthand account of the deadly raid on Osama bin Laden appears next month. "We will pursue every option available to hold members accountable, including criminal prosecution where appropriate,"...
09:14 PM, Aug 24, 2012
Kabul: A suicide bomber killed 21 people including three US soldiers at a checkpoint in a packed market in eastern Afghanistan on Wednesday - the third assault targeting Americans in as many days. The daily violence is threatening to undermine international hopes of an orderly handover to Afghan forces at the end of 2014. Although American officials stress successes in establishing pockets of governance in some areas, the east and...
02:23 AM, Jun 21, 2012
Hanoi: The Vietnamese government has agreed to open three previously restricted sites to help the search for and excavation of the remains of US servicemen listed as missing in action, a Pentagon spokesman said on Monday. The agreement was unveiled at a meeting between visiting US Defence Secretary Leon Panetta and his Vietnamese counterpart Phung Quang Thanh, spokesman George Little said. He gave no details about the sites. "The Department...
01:22 PM, Jun 04, 2012
New Delhi: Shortly after a surprise visit by US President Barack Obama to Afghanistan early on Wednesday morning on the anniversary of Osama bin Laden's death, serial bomb blasts and a suicide car bomb attack rocked Kabul killing six people including one Gurkha guard. The blasts occurred near the foreign military bases in Afghanistan. The Taliban has claimed responsibility for the attacks. Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid confirmed it in a...
07:49 AM, May 02, 2012
Kabul: Afghan President Hamid Karzai condemned photographs of US soldiers posing with the bloodied remains of three suicide bombers as "disgusting" and said on Thursday that only a quicker exit of international forces can prevent such missteps. Karzai joined top American officials in denouncing that two-year-old photos, the latest in a string of embarrassing controversies that have jeopardised relations between the two countries in the midst of negotiations over the...
11:03 PM, Apr 19, 2012
Kabul: Two American officers were shot dead at close range in Afghanistan's Interior Ministry on Saturday, a US official said, as rage gripped the country for a fifth day over the burning of the Muslim holy book at a NATO base. NATO recalled all staff working at ministries in the Afghan capital, Kabul, following the attack, with its top commander in Afghanistan calling the killer a coward. "For obvious force...
07:52 AM, Feb 26, 2012
Bagram: More than 2,000 Afghans protested outside the main US military base in Afghanistan on Tuesday over a report that foreign troops had improperly disposed of copies of the Koran and other religious items, Afghan officials said. US helicopters fired flares to try to break up the demonstrators, some of whom were chanting anti-foreigner slogans and throwing stones. Roshna Khalid, the provincial governor's spokeswoman, said Korans had been burnt inside...
05:03 PM, Feb 21, 2012
Baghdad: The last convoy of US soldiers pulled out of Iraq on Sunday, ending nearly nine years of war that cost almost 4,500 American and tens of thousands of Iraqi lives and left a country grappling with political uncertainty. The war launched in March 2003 with missiles striking Baghdad to oust President Saddam Hussein closes with a fragile democracy still facing insurgents, sectarian tensions and the challenge of defining its...
10:17 PM, Dec 18, 2011
Fort Bragg: US President Barack Obama saluted returning troops returning from Iraq on Wednesday, declaring that the nearly nine-year conflict is ending honorably, "not with a final battle, but with a final march toward home." Marking the conclusion of the war at this military base that's seen more than 200 deaths over nearly nine years of fighting in Iraq, Obama never tried to declare victory. It was a war that...
12:50 AM, Dec 15, 2011
Washington: "Mission Accomplished" are two words President Barack Obama will not use as he winds down the most unpopular US military venture since Vietnam and declares an end to another war without victory. Obama's visit to Fort Bragg, North Carolina, on Wednesday will be a chance to tout the completion of a troop pullout from Iraq by year-end, fulfilling a promise that helped him win the presidency in 2008 and...
04:35 AM, Dec 14, 2011
Baghdad: A series of bombs tore through crowds of Shi'ite pilgrims celebrating a major ritual across Iraq on Monday, killing at least 32 people, mostly women and children, and wounding scores more, local police and witnesses said. The attacks, at the height of Ashura, which commemorates the death of Prophet Mohammad's grandson Imam Hussein and defines Shi'ite Islam, underscored Iraq's fragile security as the last US troops withdraw from the...
01:23 AM, Dec 06, 2011
Islamabad: The US on Sunday started pulling out its nationals from Shamsi airbase, reportedly used by CIA- operated drones, on the orders of Pakistan government after a deadly NATO cross-border airsrike killed 24 of its soldiers. An American aircraft arrived in Pakistan to fly out US nationals. After the aircraft landed, the US nationals boarded it amidst strict security, TV news channels reported. Officials from the Federal Investigation Agency were...
04:27 PM, Dec 04, 2011
Baghdad: A suicide bomber attacked a military base in the Iraqi town of Taji on Monday, killing at least 19 people, in the latest assault by insurgents trying to undermine the government. In central Baghdad an explosion in a car park at Iraq's parliament killed at least one person and wounded several others, including a politician, security officials said. The Taji bombing was the third major attack in the last...
12:56 AM, Nov 29, 2011
Kabul: Afghan President Hamid Karzai said on Sunday that the nation's forces will soon take charge of security in areas of the country that are home to half of Afghanistan's population. The handover, expected to begin by early next year, is the second step in a transition that Karzai hopes will leave Afghan forces in control of the entire country by the end of 2014, when the US-led coalition's combat...
01:28 AM, Nov 28, 2011
Washington: US Republican presidential candidates showed on Sunday how they plan to attack President Barack Obama's credentials as commander in chief by criticizing his actions on Iraq and Libya. Republicans seeking their party's nomination are trying to distinguish themselves from each other and show they can take on the Democratic president in the November 2012 election. Herman Cain, a former pizza executive running first in some opinion polls, and Michele...
01:24 AM, Oct 31, 2011
Tehran: Iran's supreme leader on Sunday hailed the coming withdrawal of US troops from neighbouring Iraq as a "golden" victory. US President Barack Obama plans to withdraw his 40,000 troops from Iraq by the end of the year after negotiations on keeping some forces there failed, a move some US politicians say could give Tehran more room to assert its influence. "The uniform stance of all tribes and religions in...
12:18 AM, Oct 31, 2011
